BERKELEY 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY 


H  Wovel 


BY 


W.  D.  HOWELLS 

AUTHOR  OF    "AN   IMPERATIVE   DUTY"    "ANNIE   KILBURN " 
"  A  HAZARD   OF   NEW   FORTUNES  "    ETC. 


NEW    YORK 

HARPER   &   BROTHERS,  FRANKLIN   SQUARE 
1892 


WILLIAM   DEAN   HOWELLS'S 
NOVELS. 

UNIFORM.   LIBRARY  EDITION. 
POBT  Svo,  CLOTH. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.    $1  50. 

AN  IMPERATIVE  DUTY.    $1  00. 

A   HAZARD   OF   NEW   FORTUNES.     2  Vols.,  $2  00. 

THE  SHADOW  OF  A  DREAM.    $1  00. 

ANNIE  KILBURN.    $1  50. 

APRIL  HOPES.     $1  50. 

PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


Copyright,  1891,  by  WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWEI.LS. 
Electrotypcd  by  S.  J.  PABKHILL  &  Co.,  Boston. 


THE   QUALITY   OF   MERCY. 


PART  FIKST. 

I. 

NORTHWICK'S  man  met  him  at  the  station  with  the 
cutter.  The  train  was  a  little  late,  and  Elbridge  was 
a  little  early  ;  after  a  few  moments  of  formal  waiting, 
he  began  to  walk  the  clipped  horses  up  and  down  the 
street.  As  they  walked  they  sent  those  quivers  and 
thrills  over  their  thin  coats  which  horses  can  give  at 
will ;  they  moved  their  heads  up  and  down,  slowly 
and  easily,  and  made  their  bells  jangle  noisily  together; 
the  bursts  of  sound  evoked  by  their  firm  and  nervous 
pace  died  back  in  showers  and  falling  drops  of  music. 
All  the  time  Elbridge  swore  at  them  affectionately, 
with  the  unconscious  profanity  of  the  rustic  Yankee 
whose  lot  has  been  much  cast  with  horses.  In  the 
halts  he  made  at  each  return  to  the  station,  he  let 
his  blasphemies  bubble  sociably  from  him  in  response 
to  the  friendly  imprecations  of  the  three  or  four  other 
drivers  who  were  waiting  for  the  train ;  they  had 
apparently  no  other  parlance.  The  drivers  of  the 
hotel  'bus  and  of  the  local  express  wagon  were  par- 


2  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

ticular  friends ;  they  gave  each  other  to  perdition  at 
every  other  word ;  a  growing  boy,  who  had  come  to 
meet  Mr.  Gerrish,  the  merchant,  with  the  family 
sleigh,  made  himself  a  fountain  of  meaningless  male 
dictions  ;  the  public  hackman,  who  admired  Elbridge 
almost  as  much  as  he  respected  Elbridge's  horses  (they 
were  really  Northwick's,  but  the  professional  conven 
tion  was  that  they  were  Elbridge's),  clothed  them 
with  fond  curses  as  with  a  garment.  He  was  himself, 
more  literally  speaking,  clothed  in  an  old  ulster,  much 
frayed  about  the  wrists  and  skirts,  and  polished  across 
the  middle  of  the  back  by  rubbing  against  counters 
and  window-sills.  He  was  bearded  like  a  patriarch, 
and  he  wore  a  rusty  fur  cap  pulled  down  over  his  ears, 
though  it  was  not  very  cold ;  its  peak  rested  on  the 
point  of  his  nose,  so  that  he  had  to  throw  his  head 
far  back  to  get  Elbridge  in  the  field  of  his  vision. 
Elbridge  had  on  a  high  hat,  and  was  smoothly  but 
toned  to  his  throat  in  a  plain  coachman's  coat  of  black ; 
Northwick  had  never  cared  to  have  him  make  a  closer 
approach  to  a  livery ;  and  it  is  doubtful  if  Elbridge 
would  have  done  it  if  he  had  asked  or  ordered  it  of 
him.  He  deferred  to  Northwick  in  a  measure  as  the 
owner  of  his  horses,  but  he  did  not  defer  to  him  in  any 
other  quality. 

«,  "  Say,  Elbridge,  when  you  goin'  to  give  nie  that  old 
hat  o'  your'n  ?  "  asked  the  hackman  in  a  shout  that 
would  have  reached  Elbridge  if  he  had  been  half  a 
mile  off  instead  of  half  a  rod. 

"What  do  you  want  of  another  second-hand  hat, 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  3 

you old  fool,  you?"  asked  Elbridge  in  his 

turn. 

The  hackman  doubled  himself  down  for  joy,  and 
slapped  his  leg;  at  the  sound  of  a  whistle  to  the  east 
ward,  he  pulled  himself  erect  again,  and  said,  as  if 
the  fact  were  one  point  gained,  ^  Well,  there  she 
blows,  any  way."  Then  he  went  round  the  corner  of 
the  station  to  be  in  full  readiness  for  any  chance  pas 
senger  the  train  might  improbably  bring  him. 

No  one  alighted  but  Mr.  Gerrish  and  Northwick. 
Mr.  Gerrish  found  it  most  remarkable  that  he  should 
have  come  all  the  way  from  Boston  on  the  same  train 
with  Northwick  and  not  known  it ;  but  Northwick  was 
less  disposed  to  wonder  at  it.  He  passed  rapidly 
beyond  the  following  of  Mr.  Gerrish,  and  mounted  to 
the  place  Elbridge  made  for  him  in  the  cutter,  While 
Elbridge  was  still  tucking  the  robes  about  their  legs, 
Northwick  drove  away  from  the  station,  and  through 
the  village  up  to  the  rim  of  the  highland  that  lies 
between  Hatboro'  and  South  Hatboro'.  The  bare 
line  cut  along  the  horizon  where  the  sunset  lingered 
in  a  light  of  liquid  crimson,  paling  and  passing  into 
weaker  violet  tints  with  every  moment,  but  still  ten 
derly  flushing  the  walls  of  the  sky,  and  holding  longer 
the  accent  of  its  color  where  a  keen  star  had  here  and 
there  already  pierced  it  and  shone  quivering  through. 
The  shortest  days  were  past,  but  in  the  first  week  of 
February  they  had  not  lengthened  sensibly,  though  to 
a  finer  perception  there  was  the  promise  of  release 
from  the  winter  dark,  if  not  from  the  winter  cold.  It 


4  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

was  not  far  from  six  o'clock  when  North  wick  mounted 
the  southward  rise  of  the  street ;  it  was  still  almost 

li<rht  enough  to  read;    and   the  little   slender  black 

&  & 

figure  of  a  man  that  started  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
road,  as  if  it  had  risen  out  of  the  ground,  had  an 
even  vivid  distinctness.  He  must  have  been  lying  in 
the  snow;  the  horses  crouched  back  with  a  sudden 
recoil,  as  if  he  had  struck  them  back  with  his  arm, 
and  plunged  the  runners  of  the  cutter  into  the  deeper 
snow  beside  the  beaten  track.  He  made  a  slight 
pause,  long  enough  to  give  Northwick  a  contemptuous 
glance,  and  then  continued  along  the  road^at  a  leisurely 
pace  to  the  deep  cut  through  the  snow  from  the  next 
house.  Here  he  stood  regarding  such  difficulty  as 
Northwick  had  in  quieting  his  horses,  and  getting 
underway  again.  He  said  nothing,  and  Northwick 
did  not  speak ;  Elbridge  growled,  "  He's  on  one  of 
his  tears  again,"  and  the  horses  dashed  forward  with 
a  shriek  of  all  their  bells.  Northwick  did  not  open 
his  lips  till  he  entered  the  avenue  of  firs  that  led  from 
the  highway  to  his  house  ;  they  were  still  clogged  with 
the  snowfall,  and  their  lowermost  branches  were  buried 
in  the  drifts. 

"What's  the  matter  with  the  colt  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  don't  know  as  that  fellow  understands  the  colt's 
feet  very  well.  I  guess  one  of  the  shoes  is  set  wrong," 
said  Elbridge. 

"  Better  look  after  it," 

Northwick  left  Elbridge  the  reins,  and  got  out  of  the 
cutter  at  the  flight  of  granite  steps  which  rose  to  the 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  5 

ground-floor  of  his  wooden  palace.  Broad  levels  of 
piazza  stretched  away  from  the  entrance  under  a 
portico  of  that  carpentry  which  so  often  passes  with 
us  for  architecture.  In  spite  of  the  effect  of  organic 
flimsiness  in  every  wooden  structure  but  a  log  cabin, 
or  a  fisherman's  cottage  shingled  to  the  ground,  the 
house  suggested  a  perfect  functional  comfort.  There 
were  double  windows  on  all  round  the  piazzas ;  a  mel 
low  glow  from  the  incandescent  electrics  penetrated  to 
the  outer  dusk  from  them ;  when  the  door  was  opened 
to  Northwick,  a  pleasant  heat  gushed  out,  together 
with  the  perfume  of  flowers,  and  the  odors  of  dinner. 

"  Dinner  is  just  served,  sir,"  said  the  inside  man, 
disposing  of  Northwick's  overcoat  and  hat  on  the  hall 
table  with  respectful  scruple. 

Northwick  hesitated.  He  stood  over  the  register, 
and  vaguely  held  his  hands  in  the  pleasant  warmth 
indirectly  radiated  from  the  steam-pipes  below. 

"  The  young  ladies  were  just  thinking  you  wouldn't 
be  home  till  the  next  train,"  the  man  suggested,  at  the 
sound  of  voices  from  the  dining-room. 

"  They  have  some  one  with  them  ?  "  Northwick 
asked. 

"  Yes,  sir.     The  rector,  sir ;  Mr.  Wade,  sir." 

"  I'll  come  down  by  and  by,"  Northwick  said,  turn 
ing  to  the  stairs.  "  Say  I  had  a  late  lunch  before  I 
left  town." 

"  Yes,  sir,'*  said  the  man. 

Northwick  went  on  up  stairs,  \vith  footfalls  hushed 
by  the  thickly-padded  thick  carpet,  and  turned  into 


6  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

the  sort  of  study  that  opened  out  of  his  bedroom.  It 
had  been  his  wife's  parlor  during  the  few  years  of  her 
life  in  the  house  which  he  had  built  for  her,  and  which 
they  had  planned  to  spend  their  old  age  in  together. 
It  faced  southward,  and  looked  out  over  the  green 
houses  and  the  gardens,  that  stretched  behind  the 
house  to  the  bulk  of  woods,  shutting  out  the  stage- 
picturesqueness  of  the  summer  settlement  of  South 
Hatboro'.  She  had  herself  put  the  rocking-chair 
in  the  sunny  bay-window,  and  Northwick  had  not 
allowed  it  to  be  disturbed  there  since  her  death.  In 
an  alcove  at  one  side  he  had  made  a  place  for  the  safe 
where  he  kept  his  papers ;  his  wife  had  intended  to 
keep  their  silver  in  it,  but  she  had  been  scared  by  the 
notion  of  having  burglars  so  close  to  them  in  the  night, 
and  had  always  left  the  silver  in  the  safe  in  the  dining- 
room. 

She  was  all  her  life  a  timorous  creature,  and  after 
her  marriage  had  seldom  felt  safe  out  of  Northwick's 
presence.  Her  portrait,  by  Hunt,  hanging  over  the 
mantelpiece,  suggested  something  of  this,  though  the 
painter  had  made  the  most  of  her  thin,  middle-aged 
blond  good  looks,  and  had  given  her  a  substance  of 
general  character  which  was  more  expressive  of  his 
own  free  and  bold  style  than  of  the  facts  in  the  case. 
She  was  really  one  of  those  hen-minded  women,  who 
are  so  common  in  all  walks  of  life,  and  are  made  up 
of  only  one  aim  at  a  time,  and  of  manifold  anxieties  at 
all  times.  Her  instinct  for  saving  long  survived  the 
days  of  struggle  in  which  she  had  joined  it  to  North- 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  7 

wick's  instinct  for  getting ;  she  lived  arid  died  in  the 
hope,  if  not  the  belief,  that  she  had  contributed  to  his 
prosperity  by  looking-  strictly  after  all  manner  of 
valueless  odds  and  ends.  But  he  had  been  passively 
happy  with  her ;  since  her  death,  he  had  allowed  her 
to  return  much  into  his  thoughts,  from  which  her  troub 
lesome  solicitudes  and  her  entire  uselessness  in  impor 
tant  matters  had  obliged  him  to  push  her  while  she 
lived.  He  often  had  times  when  it  seemed  to  him 
that  he  was  thinking  of  nothing,  and  then  he  found  he 
had  been  thinking  of  her.  At  such  times,  with  a  pang, 
he  realized  that  he  missed  her ;  but  perhaps  the  wound 
was  to  habit  rather  than  affection.  He  now  sat  down 
in  his  swivel-chair  and  turned  it  from  the  writing-desk 
which  stood  on  the  rug  before  the  fireplace,  and  looked 
up  into  the  eyes  of  her  effigy  with  a  sense  of  her  intan 
gible  presence  in  it,  and  with  a  dumb  longing  to  rest 
his  soul  against  hers.  She  was  the  only  one  who  could 
have  seen  him  in  his  wish  to  have  not  been  what  he 
was ;  she  would  have  denied  it  to  his  face,  if  he  had 
told  her  he  was  a  thief;  and  as  he  meant  to  make  him 
self  more  and  more  a  thief,  her  love  would  have  eased 
the  way  by  full  acceptance  of  the  theories  that  ran 
along  with  his  intentions  and  covered  them  with  pre 
tences  of  necessity.  He  thought  how  even  his  own 
mother  could  not  have  been  so  much  comfort  to  him ; 
she  would  have  had  the  mercy,  but  she  would  not  have 
had  the  folly.  At  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  and  under 
all  his  pretences,  Northwick  knew  that  it  was  not 
mercy  which  would  help  him ;  but  he  wanted  it,  as 


8  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

we  all  want  what  is  comfortable  and  bad  for  us  at 
times.  "With  the  performance  and  purpose  of  a  thief 
in  his  heart,  he  turned  to  the  pictured  face  of  his  dead 
wife  as  his  refuge  from  the  face  of  all  living.  It  could 
not  look  at  him  as  if  he  were  a  thief. 

The  word  so  filled  his  mind  that  it  seemed  always 
about  to  slip  from  his  tongue.  It  was  what  the  presi 
dent  of  the  board  had  called  him  when  the  fact  of  his 
fraudulent  manipulation  of  the  company's  books  was 
laid  so  distinctly  before  him  that  even  the  insane 
refusal,  which  the  criminal  instinctively  makes  of  his 
crime  in  its  presence,  was  impossible.  The  other 
directors  sat  blankly  round,  and  said  nothing ;  not 
because  they  hated  a  scene,  but  because  the  ordinary 
course  of  life  among  us  had  not  supplied  them  with 
the  emotional  materials  for  making  one.  The  presi 
dent,  however,  had  jumped  from  his  seat  and  advanced 
upon  North  wick.  "  What  does  all  this  mean,  sir  ?  I'll 
tell  you  what  it  means.  It  means  that  you're  a  thief, 
sir ;  the  same  as  if  you  had  picked  my  pocket,  or  stolen 
my  horse,  or  taken  my  overcoat  out  of  my  hall." 

He  shook  his  clenched  fist  in  Northwick's  face,  and 
seemed  about  to  take  him  by  the  throat.  Afterwards 
he  inclined  more  to  mercy  than  the  others ;  it  was  he 
who  carried  the  vote  which  allowed  Northwick  three 
days'  grace,  to  look  into  his  affairs,  and  lay  before  the 
directors  the  proof  that  he  had  ample  means,  as  he 
maintained,  to  meet  the  shortage  in  the  accounts.  "  I 
wish  you  well  out  of  it,  for  your  family's  sake,''  he 
said  at  parting;  "but  all  the  same,  sir,  you  are  a 
thief." 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

He  put  his  hands  ostentatiously  in  his  pockets,  when 
some  others  meaninglessly  shook  hands  with  North- 
wick,  at  parting,  as  Northwick  himself  might  have 
shaken  hands  with  another  in  his  place ;  and  he 
brushed  by  him  out  of  the  door  without  looking  at 
him.  He  came  suddenly  back  to  say,  "If  it  were  a 
question  of  you  alone,  I  would  cheerfully  lose  some 
thing  more  than  you've  robbed  me  of  for  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  you  handcuffed  in  this  room  and  led  to  jail 
through  the  street  by  a  constable.  No  honest  man, 
no  man  who  was  not  always  a  rogue  at  heart,  could 
have  done  what  you've  done ;  juggled  with  the  books 
for  years,  and  bewitched  the  record  so  by  your  infernal 
craft,  that  it  was  never  suspected  till  now.  You've 
given  mind  to  your  scoundrelly  work,  sir  ;  all  the 
mind  you  had ;  for  if  you  hadn't  been  so  anxious  to 
steal  successfully,  you'd  have  given  more  mind  to  the 
use  of  your  stealings.  You  may  have  some  of  them 
left,  but  it  looks  as  if  you'd  made  ducks  and  drakes  of 
them,  like  any  petty  rascal  in  the  hands  of  the  Em 
ployees'  Insurance  Company.  Yes,  sir,  I  believe 
you're  of  about  the  intellectual  calibre  of  that  sort  of 
thief.  I  can't  respect  you  even  on  your  own  ground. 
But  I'm  willing  to  give  you  the  chance  you  ask,  for 
your  daughter's  sake.  She's  been  in  and  out  of  my 
house  with  my  girl  like  one  of  my  own  children,  and 
I  won't  send  her  father  to  jail  if  I  can  help  it.  Under 
stand  !  I  haven't  any  sentiment  for  you,  Northwick. 
You're  the  kind  of  rogue  I'd  like  to  see  in  a  convict's 
jacket,  learning  to  make  shoe-brushes.  But  you  shall 


10  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

have  your  chance  to  go  home  and  see  if  you  can  pay 
up  somehow,  and  you  sha'n't  be  shadowed  while  you're 
at  it.  You  shall  keep  your  outside  to  the  world  three 
days  longer,  you  whited  sepulchre ;  but  if  you  want 
to  know,  I  think  the  best  thing  that  could  happen  to 
you  on  your  way  home  would  be  a  good  railroad 
accident." 

The  man's  words  and  looks  were  burnt  into  North- 
wick's  memory,  which  now  seemed  to  have  the  faculty 
of  simultaneously  reproducing  them  all.  North  wick 
remembered  his  purple  face,  with  its  prominent  eyes, 
and  the  swing  of  his  large  stomach,  and  just  how  it 
struck  against  the  jamb  as  he  whirled  a  second  time 
out  of  the  door.  The  other  directors,  some  of  them, 
stood  round  buttoned  up  in  their  overcoats,  with  their 
hats  on,  and  a  .sort  of  stunned  aspect ;  some  held 
their  hats  in  their  hands,  and  looked  down  into  them 
with  a  decorous  absence  of  expression,  as  people  do  at 
a  funeral.  Then  they  left  him  alone  in  the  treasurer's 
private  room,  with  its  official  luxury  of  thick  Turkey 
rugs,  leathern  arm-chairs,  and  nickel-plated  cuspidors 
standing  one  on  each  side  of  the  hearth  where  a  fire 
of  soft  coal  in  a  low-down  grate  burned  with  a  sub 
dued  and  respectful  flicker. 


IL 

IF  it  had  not  been  for  the  boisterous  indignation  of 
the  president,  Northwick  might  have  come  away  from 
the  meeting,  after  the  exposure  of  his  defalcations,  with 
an  unimpaired  personal  dignity.  But  as  it  was,  he  felt 
curiously  shrunken  and  shattered,  till  the  prevailing 
habit  of  his  mind  enabled  him  to  piece  himself  together 
again  and  resume  his  former  size  and  shape.  This 
happened  very  quickly ;  he  had  conceived  of  himself 
so  long  as  a  man  employing  funds  in  his  charge  in 
speculations  sometimes  successful  and  sometimes  not, 
but  at  all  times  secured  by  his  personal  probity  and 
reliability.  He  had  in  fact  more  than  once  restored 
all  that  he  had  taken,  and  he  had  come  to  trust  him 
self  in  the  course  of  these  transactions  as  fully  as  he 
was  trusted  by  the  men  who  were  ignorant  of  his  irreg 
ularities.  He  was  somehow  flattered  by  the  complete 
confidence  they  reposed  in  him,  though  he  really  felt 
it  to  be  no  more  than  his  due ;  he  had  always  merited 
and  received  the  confidence  of  men  associated  with 
him  in  business,  and  he  had  come  to  regard  the  funds 
of  the  corporation  as  practically  his  own.  In  the  early 
days  of  his  connection  with  the  company,  it  largely 
owed  its  prosperity  to  his  wise  and  careful  manage 
ment;  one  might  say  that  it  was  not  until  the  last, 
when  he  got  so  badly  caught  by  that  drop  in  railroads, 


1  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

that  he  had  felt  anything  wrong  in  his  convertible  use 
of  its  money.  It  was  an  informality ;  he  would  not 
have  denied  that,  but  it  was  merely  an  informality. 
Then  his  losses  suddenly  leaped  beyond  his  ability  to 
make  them  good  ;  then,  for  the  first  time,  he  began 
to  practice  that  system  in  keeping  the  books  which 
the  furious  president  called  juggling  with  them.  Even 
this  measure  he  considered  a  justifiable  means  of  self- 
defence  pending  the  difficulties  which  beset  him,  and 
until  he  could  make  •  his  losses  good  by  other  opera 
tions.  From  time  to  time  he  was  more  fortunate ;  and 
whenever  he  dramatized  himself  in  an  explanation  to 
the  directors,  as  he  often  did,  especially  of  late,  he 
easily  satisfied  them  as  to  the  nature  of  his  motives 
and  the  propriety  of  his  behavior,  by  calling  their 
attention  to  these  successful  deals,  and  to  the  proba 
bility,  the  entire  probability,  that  he  could  be  at  any 
moment  in  a  position  to  repay  all  he  had  borrowed  of 
the  company.  He  called  it  borrowing,  and  in  his  long 
habit  of  making  himself  these  loans  and  returning 
them,  he  had  come  to  have  a  sort  of  vague  feeling  that 
the  company  was  privy  to  them ;  that  it  was  almost  an 
understood  thing.  The  president's  violence  was  the 
first  intimation  to  reach  him  in  the  heart  of  his  artifi 
cial  consciousness  that  his  action  was  at  all  in  the  line 
of  those  foolish  peculators  whose  discovery  and  flight 
to  Canada  was  the  commonplace  of  every  morning's 
paper ;  such  a  commonplace  that  he  had  been  sensible 
of  an  effort  in  the  papers  to  vary  the  tiresome  repeti 
tion  of  the  same  old  fact  by  some  novel  grace  of  wit, 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  13 

or  some  fresh  picturesqueness  in  putting  it.  In  the 
presence  of  the  directors,  he  had  refused  to  admit  it  to 
himself ;  but  after  they  adjourned,  and  he  was  left  alone, 
he  realized  the  truth.  He  was  like  those  fools,  exactly 
like  them,  in  what  they  had  done,  and  in  the  way  of 
doing  it;  he  was  like  them  in  motive  and  principle. 
All  of  them  had  used  others'  money  in  speculation,  ex 
pecting  to  replace  it,  and  then  had  not  been  able  to  re 
place  it,  and  then  had  skipped,  as  the  newspapers  said. 
Whether  he  should  complete  the  parallel,  and  skip, 
too,  was  a  point  which  he  had  not  yet  acknowledged 
to  himself  that  he  had  decided.  He  never  had  believed 
that  it  need  come  to  that ;  but,  for  an  instant,  when 
the  president  said  he  could  wish  him  nothing  better 
on  his  way  home  than  a  good  railroad  accident,  it 
flashed  upon  him  that  one  of  the  three  alternatives 
before  him  was  to  skip.  He  had  the  choice  to  kill 
himself,  which  was  supposed  to  be  the  gentlemanly 
way  out  of  his  difficulties,  and  would  leave  his  family 
unstained  by  his  crime;  that  matter  had  sometimes 
been  discussed  in  his  presence,  and  every  one  had 
agreed  that  it  was  the  only  thing  for  a  gentleman  to 
do  after  he  had  pilfered  people  of  money  he  could  not 
pay  back.  There  was  something  else  that  a  man  of 
other  instincts  and  weaker  fibre  might  do,  and  that 
was  to  stand  his  trial  for  embezzlement,  and  take  his 
punishment.  Or  a  man,  if  he  was  that  kind  of  a  man, 
could  skip.  The  question  with  Northwick  was  whether 
he  was  that  kind  of  man,  or  whether,  if  he  skipped,  he 
would  be  that  kind  of  man ;  whether  the  skipping 
would  make  him  that  kind  of  man. 


14  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

The  question  was  a  cruel  one  for  the  self-respect 
which  he  had  so  curiously  kept  intact.  He  had  been 
respectable  ever  since  he  wras  born ;  if  he  was  born 
with  any  instinct  it  was  the  instinct  of  respectability, 
the  wish  to  be  honored  for  what  he  seemed.  It  was 
all  the  stronger  in  him,  because  his  father  had  never 
had  it ;  perhaps  an  hereditary  trait  found  expression 
in  him  after  passing  over  one  generation ;  perhaps  an 
antenatal  influence  formed  him  to  that  type.  His 
mother  was  always  striving  to  keep  the  man  she  had 
married  worthy  of  her  choice  in  the  eyes  of  her  neigh 
bors  ;  but  he  had  never  seconded  her  efforts.  He  had 
been  educated  a  doctor,  but  never  practised  medicine  ; 
in  carrying  on  the  drug  and  book  business  of  the  vil 
lage,  he  cared  much  more  for  the  literary  than  the 
pharmaceutical  side  of  it ;  he  liked  to  have  a  circle  of 
cronies  about  the  wood-stove  in  his  store  till  midnight, 
and  discuss  morals  and  religion  with  them ;  and  one 
night,  when  denying  the  plenary  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures,  he  went  to  the  wrong  jar  for  an  ingredient 
of  the  prescription  he  was  making  up  ;  the  patient  died 
of  his  mistake.  The  disgrace  and  the  disaster  broke 
his  wife's  heart ;  but  he  lived  on  to  a  vague  and  color 
less  old  age,  supported  by  his  son  in  a  total  disoccupa- 
tion.  The  elder  Northwick  used  sometimes  to  speak 
of  his  son  and  his  success  in  the  world  ;  not  boastfully, 
but  with  a  certain  sarcasm  for  the  source  of  his  bounty, 
as  a  boy  who  had  always  disappointed  him  by  a  nar 
rowness  of  ambition.  He  called  him  Milt,  and  he  said 
he  supposed  now  Milt  was  the  most  self-satisfied  man 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  15 

in  Massachusetts ;  he  implied  that  there  were  better 
things  than  material  success.  He  did  not  say  what 
they  were,  and  he  could  have  found  very  few  people 
in  that  village  to  agree  with  him  ;  or  to  admit  that  the 
treasurer  of  the  Ponkwasset  Mills  had  come  in  any 
wise  short  of  the  destiny  of  a  man  whose  father  had 
started  him  in  life  with  the  name  of  John  Milton. 
They  called  him  Milt,  too,  among  themselves,  and  per 
haps  here  and  there  a  bolder  spirit  might  have  called 
him  so  to  his  face  if  he  had  ever  come  back  to  the 
village.  But  he  had  not.  He  had,  as  they  had  all 
heard,  that  splendid  summer  place  at  Hatboro',  where 
he  spent  his  time  when  he  was  not  at  his  house  in 
Boston  ;  and  when  they  verified  the  fact  of  his  immense 
prosperity  by  inquiry  of  some  of  the  summer-folks  who 
knew  him  or  knew  about  him,  they  were  obscurely 
flattered  by  the  fact ;  just  as  many  of  us  are  proud  of 
belonging  to  a  nation  in  which  we  are  enriched  by 
the  fellow-citizenship  of  many  manifold  millionnaires. 
They  did  not  blame  Northwick  for  never  coming  to  see 
his  father,  or  for  never  having  him  home  on  a  visit ; 
they  daily  saw  what  old  Northwick  was,  and  how  little 
he  was  fitted  for  the  society  of  a  man  whose  respecta- 
l  ility,  even  as  it  was  reflected  upon  them,  was  so  daz 
zling.  Old  Northwick  had  never  done  anything  for 
Milt;  he  had  never  even  got  along  with  him;  the  fel 
low  had  left  him,  and  made  his  own  wray ;  and  the  old 
man  had  no  right  to  talk ;  if  Milt  was  ever  of  a  mind 
to  cut  off  his  rations,  the  old  man  would  soon  see. 


III. 

THE  local  opinion  scarcely  did  justice  to  old  North- 
wick's  imperfect  discharge  of  a  father's  duties  ;  his 
critics  could  not  have  realized  how  much  some  capaci 
ties,  if  not  tastes,  which  Northwick  had  inherited,  con 
tributed  to  that  very  effect  of  respectability  which  they 
revered.  The  early  range  of  books,  the  familiarity 
with  the  mere  exterior  of  literature,  restricted  as  it 
was,  helped  Northwick  later  to  pass  for  a  man  of  edu 
cation,  if  not  of  reading,  with  men  who  were  them 
selves  less  read  than  educated.  The  people  whom  his 
ability  threw  him  with  in  Boston  were  all  Harvard 
men,  and  they  could  not  well  conceive  of  an  acquaint 
ance,  so  gentlemanly  and  quiet  as  Northwick,  who  was 
not  college  bred,  too.  By  unmistakable  signs,  which 
we  carry  through  life,  they  knew  he  was  from  the 
country,  and  they  attributed  him  to  a  freshwater  col 
lege.  They  said,  "  You're  a  Dartmouth  man,  North 
wick,  I  believe,"  or,  "  I  think  you're  from  Williams," 
and  when  Northwick  said  no,  they  forgot  it,  and 
thought  that  he  was  a  Bowdoin  man  ;  the  impression 
gradually  fixed  itself  that  he  was  from  one  or  other 
of  those  colleges.  It  was  believed  in  like  manner, 
partly  on  account  of  his  name,  that  he  was  from  one  of 
those  old  ministerial  families  that  you  find  tip  in  the 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  17 

hills,  where  the  whole  brood  study  Greek  while  they 
are  sugaring  off  in  the  spring ;  and  that  his  own  mother 
had  fitted  him  for  college.  There  was,  in  fact,  some 
thing  clerical  in  North  wick's  bearing ;  and  it  was  felt 
by  some  that  he  had  studied  for  the  ministry,  but  had 
gone  into  business  to  help  his  family.  The  literary 
phase  of  the  superstition  concerning  him  was  humored 
by  the  library  which  formed  such  a  striking  feature 
of  his  house  in  Boston,  as  well  as  his  house  in  liat- 
boro' ;  at  Hatboro'  it  was  really  vast,  and  was  so 
charming  and  so  luxurious  that  it  gave  the  idea  of  a 
cultivated  family;  they  preferred  to  live  in  it,  and 
rarely  used  the  drawing-room,  which  was  much  smaller, 
and  was  a  gold  and  white  sanctuary  on  the  north  side 
of  the  house,  only  opened  when  there  was  a  large 
party  of  guests,  for  dancing.  Most  people  came  and 
went  without  seeing  it,  and  it  remained  shut  up,  as 
much  a  conjecture  as  the  memory  of  Northwick's  wife. 
She  was  supposed  to  have  been  taken  from  him  early, 
to  save  him  and  his  children  from  the  mortifying  con 
sequences  of  one  of  those  romantic  love-affairs  in  which 
a  conscientious  man  had  sacrificed  himself  to  a  girl  he 
was  certain  to  outgrow.  JSone  of  his  world  knew  that 
his  fortunes  had  been  founded  upon  the  dowry  she 
brought  him,  and  upon  the  stay  her  belief  in  him  had 
always  been.  She  was  a  church-member,  as  such 
women  usually  are,  but  Northwick  was  really  her 
religion ;  and  as  there  is  nothing  that  does  so  much  to 
sanctify  a  deity  as  the  blind  devotion  of  its  worshippers, 
Northwick  was  rendered  at  times  worthy  of  her  faith 


18  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

by  the  intensity  of  it.  In  his  sort  he  returned  her 
love  ;  he  was  not  the  kind  of  man  whose  affections  are 
apt  to  wander,  perhaps  because  they  were  few  and 
easily  kept  together ;  perhaps  because  he  was  really 
principled  against  letting  them  go  astray.  He  was 
not  merely  true  in  a  passive  way,  but  he  was  constant 
in  the  more  positive  fashion.  When  they  began  to 
get  on  in  the  world,  and  his  business  talent  brought 
him  into  relations  with  people  much  above  them 
socially,  he  yielded  to  her  shrinking  from  the  oppor 
tunities  of  social  advancement  that  opened  to  them, 
and  held  aloof  with  her.  This  kept  him  a  country 
person  in  his  experiences  much  longer  than  he  need 
have  remained ;  and  tended  to  that  sort  of  defensive 
secretiveness  which  grew  more  and  more  upon  him, 
and  qualified  his  conduct  in  matters  where  there  was 
no  question  of  his  knowledge  of  the  polite  world.  It 
was  not  until  after  his  wife's  death,  and  until  his 
daughters  began  to  grow  up  into  the  circles  where 
his  money  and  his  business  associations  authorized 
them  to  move,  that  he  began  to  see  a  little  of  that 
world.  Even  then  he  left  it  chiefly  to  his  children ; 
for  himself  he  continued  quite  simply  loyal  to  his 
wife's  memory,  and  apparently  never  imagined  such  a 
thing  as  marrying  again. 

He  rose  from  the  chair  where  he  had  sat  looking  up 
into  her  pictured  face,  and  went  to  open  the  safe  near 
the  window.  But  he  stopped  in  stooping  over  to 
work  the  combination,  and  glanced  out  across  his 
shoulder  into  the  night.  The  familiar  beauty  of  the 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  19 

scene  tempted  him  to  the  window  for  what,  all  at  once, 
he  felt  might  be  his  last  look,  though  the  next  instant 
he  was  able  to  argue  the  feeling  down,  and  make  his 
meditated  act  work  into  his  schemes  of  early  retrieval 
and  honorable  return.  He  must  have  been  thinking 
there  before  the  fire  a  long  time,  for  now  the  moon 
had  risen,  and  shone  upon  the  black  bulk  of  firs  to  the 
southward,  and  on  the  group  of  outbuildings.  These 
were  in  a  sort  the  mechanism  that  transacted  the 
life  of  his  house,  ministering  to  all  its  necessities  and 
pleasures.  Under  the  conservatories,  with  their  long 
stretches  of  glass,  catching  the  moon's  rays  like  levels 
of  water,  was  the  steam  furnace  that  imparted  their 
summer  climate,  through  heavy  mains  carried  below 
the  basement,  to  every  chamber  of  the  mansion ;  a 
ragged  plume  of  vapor  escaped  from  the  tall  chimney 
above  them,  and  dishevelled  itself  in  diaphanous  silver 
on  the  night-breeze.  Beyond  the  hot-houses  lay  the 
cold  graperies ;  and  off  to  the  left  rose  the  stables ; 
in  a  cosy  nook  of  this  low  mass  Northwick  saw  the 
lights  of  the  coachman's  family-rooms  ;  beyond  the 
stables  were  the  cow-barn  and  the  dairy,  with  the 
farmer's  cottage ;  it  was  a  sort  of  joke  with  North- 
wick's  business  friends  that  you  could  buy  butter  of 
him  sometimes  at  less  than  half  it  cost  him,  and  the 
joke  flattered  Northwick's  sense  of  baronial  conse 
quence  with  regard  to  his  place.  It  was  really  a  farm 
in  extent,  and  it  was  mostly  a  grazing  farm ;  his  cattle 
were  in  the  herd-books,  and  he  raised  horses,  which 
he  would  sell  now  and  then  to  a  friend ;  they  were  so 


20  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

distinctly  varied  from  the  original  stock  as  to  form 
almost  a  breed  of  themselves  ;  they  numbered  scores 
in  his  stalls  and  pastures.  The  whole  group  of  the 
buildings  was  so  great  that  it  was  like  a  sort  of  com 
munal  village.  In  the  silent  moonlight  Northwick 
looked  at  it  as  if  it  were  an  expansion  or  extension  of 
himself,  so  personally  did  it  seem  to  represent  his 
tastes,  and  so  historical  was  it  of  the  ambitions  of  his 
whole  life  ;  he  realized  that  it  would  be  like  literally 
tearing  himself  from  it,  when  he  should  leave  it.  That 
would  be  the  real  pang ;  his  children  could  come  to 
him,  but  not  his  home.  But  he  reminded  himself  that 
he  was  going  only  for  a  time,  until  he  could  rehabili 
tate  himself,  and  come  back  upon  the  terms  he  could 
easily  make  when  once  he  was  on  his  feet  again.  He 
thought  how  fortunate  it  was  that  in  the  meanwhile 
this  property  could  not  be  alienated ;  how  fortunate  it 
was  that  he  had  originally  deeded  it  to  his  wife  in  the 
days  when  he  had  the  full  right  to  do  so,  and  she  had 
willed  it  to  their  children  by  a  perfect  entail.  The 
horses  and  the  cattle  might  go,  and  probably  must  go ; 
and  he  winced  to  think  of  it,  but  the  land,  and  the 
house,  — all  but  the  furniture  and  pictures,  — were  the 
children's  and  could  not  be  touched.  The  pictures 
were  his,  and  would  have  to  go  with  the  horses  and 
cattle ;  but  ten  or  twelve  thousand  dollars  would  re 
place  them,  and  he  must  add  that  sum  to  his  other 
losses,  and  bear  it  as  well  as  he  could. 

After  all,  when  everything  was  said  and  done,  he 
was  the  chief  loser.     If  he  was  a  thief,  as  that  man 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  21 

said,  he  could  show  that  he  had  robbed  himself  of  two 
dollars  for  every  dollar  that  he  had  robbed  anybody 
else  of ;  if  now  he  was  going  to  add  to  his  theft  by 
carrying  off  the  forty-three  thousand  dollars  of  the 
company's  which  he  found  himself  possessed  of,  it  was 
certainly  not  solely  in  his  own  interest.  It  was  to  be 
the  means  of  recovering  all  that  had  gone  before  it, 
and  that  the  very  men  whom  it  would  enable  him  to 
repay  finally  in  full,  supposed  it  to  have  gone  with. 

Northwick  felt  almost  a  glow  of  pride  in  clarifying 
this  point  to  his  reason.  The  additional  theft  pre 
sented  itself  almost  in  the  light  of  a  duty ;  it  really 
was  his  duty  to  make  reparation  to  those  he  had 
injured,  if  he  had  injured  any  one,  and  it  was  his  first 
duty  to  secure  the  means  of  doing  it.  If  that  money, 
which  it  might  almost  be  said  was  left  providentially 
in  his  hands,  were  simply  restored  now  to  the  company, 
it  would  do  comparatively  no  good  at  all,  and  would 
strip  him  of  every  hope  of  restoring  the  whole  sum 
he  had  borrowed.  He  arrived  at  that  word  again, 
and  reinforced  by  it,  he  stooped  again  to  work  the 
combination  of  his  safe,  and  make  sure  of  the  money, 
which  he  now  felt  an  insane  necessity  of  laying  his 
hands  on ;  but  he  turned  suddenly  sick,  with  a  sick 
ness  at  the  heart  or  at  the  stomach,  and  he  lifted 
himself,  and  took  a  turn  about  the  room. 

He  perceived  that  in  spite  of  the  outward  calm 
which  it  had  surprised  him  to  find  in  himself,  he  was 
laboring  under  some  strong  inward  stress,  and  he  must 
have  relief  from  it  if  he  was  to  carry  this  business 


22  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

through.  He  threw  up  the  window  and  stood  with 
his  hand  on  the  sash,  quivering  in  the  strong  in-rush 
of  the  freezing  air.  But  it  strengthened  him,  and 
when  he  put  down  the  window  after  a  few  moments, 
his  faintness  passed  altogether.  Still,  he  thought  he 
would  not  go  through  that  business  at  once  ;  there 
was  time  enough ;  he  would  see  his  girls  and  tell  them 
that  he  was  obliged  to  leave  by  an  early  train  in  the 
morning. 

He  took  off  his  shoes,  and  put  on  his  slippers  and 
his  house-coat,  and  went  to  the  stair-landing  outside, 
and  listened  to  the  voices  in  the  library  below.  He 
could  hear  only  women's  voices,  and  he  inferred  that 
the  young  man  who  had  been  dining  with  his  daughters 
was  gone.  He  went  back  into  his  bed-room,  and 
looked  at  the  face  of  an  unmasked  thief  in  his  glass. 
It  was  not  to  get  that  aspect  of  himself,  though,  that 
he  looked ;  it  was  to  see  if  he  was  pale  or  would  seem 
ill  to  his  children. 


IV. 

NORTHWICK  was  fond  of  both  his  daughters ;  if  he 
was  more  demonstrative  in  meeting  the  younger,  it 
was  because  she  had  the  more  modern  and  more  urban 
habit  of  caressing  her  father ;  the  elder,  who  was  very 
much  the  elder,  followed  an  earlier  country  fashion 
of  self-possession,  and  remained  silent  and  seated  when 
he  came  into  the  room,  though  she  watched  with  a 
pleased  interest  the  exchange  of  endearments  between 
him  and  her  sister.  Her  name  was  Adeline,  which 
was  her  mother's  name,  too ;  and  she  had  the  effect 
of  being  the  aunt  of  the  young  girl.  She  was  thin 
and  tall,  and  she  had  a  New  England  indigestion 
which  kept  her  looking  frailer  than  she  really  was. 
She  conformed  to  the  change  of  circumstances  which 
she  had  grown  into  almost  as  consciously  as  her 
parents,  and  dressed  richly  in  sufficiently  fashionable 
gowns,  which  she  preferred  to  have  of  silk,  cinnamon 
or  brown  in  color  ;  on  her  slight,  bony  fingers  she 
wore  a  good  many  rings. 

Suzette  was  the  name  of  the  other  daughter ;  her 
mother  had  fancied  that  name ;  but  the  single  mono 
syllable  it  had  been  shortened  into  somehow  suited 
the  proud-looking  girl  better  than  the  whole  name, 
with  its  suggestion  of  coquettishness. 

She  asked,   "Why  didn't  you  come  down,  papa? 


24  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

Mr.  Wade  was  calling,  and  he  stayed  to  dinner."  She 
smiled,  and  it  gave  him  a  pang  to  see  that  she  seemed 
unusually  happy  ;  he  could  have  borne  better,  he  per 
ceived,  to  leave  her  miserable  ;  at  least,  then,  he 
would  not  have  wholly  made  her  so. 

"  I  had  some  matters  to  look  after,"  he  said.  "  I 
thought  I  might  get  down  before  he  went."  A  deep 
leathern  arm-chair  stood  before  the  hearth  where  the 
young  rector  had  been  sitting,  with  the  ladies  at  either 
corner  of  the  mantel ;  Northwick  let  himself  sink  into 
it,  and  with  a  glance  at  the  face  of  the  faintly  ticking 
clock  on  the  black  marble  shelf  before  him,  he  added 
casually,  u  I  must  get  an  early  train  for  Ponkwasset 
in  the  morning,  and  I  still  have  some  things  to  put  in 
shape." 

"Is  there  any  trouble  there  ?"  the  girl  asked  from 
the  place  she  had  resumed.  She  held  by  one  hand 
from  the  corner  of  the  mantel,  and  let  her  head  droop 
over  on  her  arm.  Her  father  had  a  sense  of  her 
extraordinary  beauty,  as  a  stranger  might  have  had. 

"•Trouble?"  he  echoed. 

"With  the  hands." 

"  Oh,  no ;  nothing  of  that  sort.  What  made  you 
think  so?"  asked  North  wick,  rapidly  exploring  the 
perspective  opened  up  in  his  mind  by  her  question,  to 
see  if  it  contained  any  suggestion  of  advantage  to  him. 
He  found  an  instant's  relief  in  figuring  himself  called 
to  the  mills  by  a  labor  trouble. 

"  That  tiresome  little  wretch  of  a  Putney  is  going 
about  circulating  all  sorts  of  reports." 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY.  .25 

"  There  is  no  reason  as  yet,  to  suppose  the  strike 
will  affect  us,"  said  Northwick.  "  But  I  think  I  had 
better  be  on  the  ground." 

"  I  should  think  you  could  leave  it  to  the  Superin 
tendent,"  said  the  girl,  "without  wearing  your  own 
life  out  about  it." 

"I  suppose  I  might,"  said  Northwick,  with  an  ef 
fect  of  refusing  to  acquire  merit  by  his  behavior,  "  but 
the  older  hands  all  know  me  so  well,  that  —  " 

He  stopped  as  if  it  were  unnecessary  to  go  on,  and 
the  elder  daughter  said  :  "  He  is  on  one  of  his  sprees 
again.  I  should  think  something  ought  to  be  done 
about  him,  for  his  family's  sake,  if  nothing  else.  El- 
bridge  told  James  that  you  almost  drove  over  him, 
coming  up." 

"  Yes,"  said  Northwick.  "  I  didn  't  see  him  until 
he  started  up  under  the  horses'  feet." 

"  He  will  get  killed,  some  of  these  days,"  said  Ade 
line,  with  the  sort  of  awful  satisfaction  in  realizing  a 
catastrophe,  which  delicate  women  often  feel. 

"  It  would  be  the  best  thing  for  him,"  said  her 
sister,  "and  for  his  family,  too.  When  a  man  is 
nothing  but  a  burden  and  a  disgrace  to  himself  and 
everybody  belonging  to  him,  he  had  better  die  as  soon 
as  possible." 

Northwick  sat  looking  into  his  daughter's  beautiful 
face,  but  he  saw  the  inflamed  and  heated  visage  of  the 
president  of  the  board,  arid  he  heard  him  saying, 
"  The  best  thing  that  could  happen  to  you  on  your 
way  home  would  be  a  good  railroad  accident." 


26.  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

He  sighed  faintly,  and  said,  "  We  can  't  always  tell. 
I  presume  it  isn't  for  us  to  say."  He  went  on,  with 
that  leniency  for  the  shortcomings  of  others  which  we 
feel  when  we  long  for  mercy  to  our  own :  "  Putney  is 
a  very  able  man ;  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  in  the 
State,  and  very  honest.  He  could  be  almost  anything 
if  he  would  let  liquor  alone.  I  don't  wish  to  judge 
him.  He  may  have  " —  North  wick  sighed  again,  and 
ended  vaguely  —  "  his  reasons." 

Suzette  laughed.  "  How  moderate  you  always  are, 
papa !  And  how  tolerant !  " 

u  I  guess  Mr.  Putney  knows  pretty  well  whom  he's 
got  to  deal  with,  and  that  he's  safe  in  abusing  you  all 
he  likes,"  said  Adeline.  "  But  I  don't  see  how  such 
respectable  people  as  Dr.  Morrell  and  Mrs.  Morrell 
can  tolerate  him.  I've  no  patience  with  Dr.  Morrell, 
or  his  wife,  either.  To  be  sure,  they  tolerate  Mrs. 
Wilmington,  too." 

Suzette  went  over  to  her  father  to  kiss  him.  "  Well, 
I'm  going  to  bed,  papa.  If  you'd  wanted  more  of  my 
society  you  ought  to  have  come  down  sooner.  I  sup 
pose  I  sha'n't  see  you  in  the  morning ;  so  it's  good-bye 
as  well  as  good-night.  When  will  you  be  home  ?  " 

"  Not  for  some  days,  perhaps,"  said  the  unhappy  man. 

"  How  doleful !  Are  you  always  so  homesick  when 
you  go  away  ?  " 

"  Not  always  ;  no." 

"  Well,  try  to  cheer  up,  this  time,  then.  And  if  you 
have  to  be  gone  a  great  while,  send  for  me,  won't 
you  ?  " 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY.  27 

"  Yes,  yes ;  I  will,"  said  Northwick.  The  girl  gave 
his  head  a  hug,  and  then  glided  out  of  the  room.  She 
stopped  to  throw  him  a  kiss  from  the  door. 

"  There  !  "  said  Adeline.  "  I  didn't  mean  to  let  Mrs. 
Wilmington  slip  out ;  she  can't  bear  the  name,  and  I 
know  it  drove  her  away.  But  you  mustn't  let  it  worry 
you,  father.  I  guess  it's  all  going  well,  now." 

"  What's  going  well?"  Northwick  asked,  vaguely. 

"  The  Jack  Wilmington  business.  I  know  she's 
really  given  him  up  at  last ;  and  we  can't  be  too 
thankful  for  that  much,  if  it's  no  more.  I  don't  be 
lieve  he's  bad,  for  all  the  talk  about  him,  but  he's  been 
weak,  and  that's  a  thing  she  couldn't  forgive  in  a  man  ; 
she's  so  strong  herself." 

Northwick  did  not  think  of  Wilmington  ;  he  thought 
of  himself,  and  in  the  depths  of  his  guilty  soul,  in 
those  secret  places  underneath  all  his  pretences, 
where  he  really  knew  himself  a  thief,  he  wondered 
if  his  child's  strength  would  be  against  her  forgiving 
his  weakness.  What  we  greatly  dread  we  most  un- 
questioningly  believe ;  and  it  did  not  occur  to  him  to 
ask  whether  impatience  with  weakness  was  a  necessary 
inference  from  strength.  He  only  knew  himself  to  be 
miserably  weak. 

He  rose  and  stood  a  moment  by  the  mantel,  with  his 
impassive,  handsome  face  turned  toward  his  daughter 
as  if  he  were  going  to  speak  to  her.  He  was  a  tall 
man,  rather  thin  ;  he  was  clean  shaven,  except  for  the 
grayish  whiskers  just  forward  of  his  ears  and  on  a  line 
with  them ;  he  had  a  regular  profile,  which  was  more 


28  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

attractive  than  the  expression  of  his  direct  regard. 
He  took  up  a  crystal  ball  that  lay  on  the  marble,  and 
looked  into  it  as  if  he  were  reading  his  future  in  its 
lucid  depths,  and  then  put  it  down  again,  with  an  effect 
of  helplessness.  When  he  spoke,  it  was  not  in  connec 
tion  with  what  his  daughter  had  been  talking  about. 
He  said  almost  dryly,  "  I  think  I  will  go  up  and  look 
over  some  papers  I  have  to  take  with  me,  and  then 
try  to  get  a  little  sleep  before  I  start." 

"And  when  shall  we  expect  you  back?  "  asked  his 
daughter,  submissively  accepting  his  silence  concern 
ing  her  sister's  love  affairs.  She  knew  that  it  meant 
acquiescence  in  anything  that  Sue  and  she  thought 
best. 

"  I  don't  know,  exactly ;  I  can't  say,  now.  Good 
night." 

To  her  surprise  he  came  up  and  kissed  her ;  his 
caresses  were  for  Sue,  and  she  expected  them  no  more 
than  she  invited  them.  "Why,  father!  "  she  said  in 
a  pleased  voice. 

"  Let  James  pack  the  small  bag  for  me,  and  send 
Elbridge  to  me  in  about  an  hour,"  he  said,  as  he  went 
out  into  the  hall. 


V. 

NORTHWTCK  was  now  fifty-nine  years  old,  but  long 
before  he  reached  this  age  he  had  seen  many  things  to 
make  him  doubt  the  moral  government  of  the  universe. 
His  earliest  instruction  had  been  such  as  we  all  re 
ceive.  He  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  there  was 
an  overruling  power  which  would  punish  him  if  he  did 
wrong,  and  reward  him  if  he  did  right ;  or  would,  at 
least,  be  displeased  in  one  case,  and  pleased  in  the  other. 
The  precept  took  primarily  the  monitory  form,  and  first 
enforced  the  fact  of  the  punishment  or  the  displeasure ; 
there  were  times  when  the  reward  or  the  pleasure 
might  not  sensibly  follow  upon  good  behavior,  but  evil 
behavior  never  escaped  the  just  consequences.  This 
was  the  doctrine  which  framed  the  man's  intention  if 
not  his  conduct  of  life,  and  continued  to  shape  it  years 
after  experience  of  the  world,  and  especially  of  the 
business  world,  had  gainsaid  it.  He  had  seen  a  great 
many  cases  in  which  not  only  good  behavior  had 
apparently  failed  of  its  reward  but  bad  behavior 
had  failed  of  its  punishment.  In  the  case  of  bad 
behavior,  his  observation  had  been  that  no  unhappi- 
riess,  not  even  any  discomfort,  came  from  it  unless  it 
was  found  out ;  for  the  most  part,  it  was  not  found 
out.  This  did  not  shake  North  wick's  principles  ;  he 
still  intended  to  do  right,  so  as  to  be  on  the  safe  side, 


30  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

even  in  a  remote  and  improbable  contingency ;  but  it 
enabled  him  to  compromise  with  his  principles  and  to 
do  wrong  provisionally  and  then  repair  the  wrong 
before  he  was  found  out,  or  before  the  overruling 
power  noticed  him. 

But  now  there  were  things  that  made  him  think,  in 
the  surprising  misery  of  being  found  out,  that  this 
power  might  have  had  its  eye  upon  him  all  the  time, 
and  was  not  sleeping,  or  gone  upon  a  journey,  as  he 
had  tacitly  flattered  himself.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
there  was  even  a  dramatic  contrivance  in  the  circum 
stances  to  render  his  anguish  exquisite.  He  had  not 
read  many  books ;  but  sometimes  his  daughters  made 
him  go  to  the  theatre,  and  once  he  had  seen  the  play 
of  Macbeth.  The  people  round  him  were  talking 
about  the  actor  who  played  the  part  of  Macbeth,  but 
Northwick  kept  his  mind  critically  upon  the  play,  and 
it  seemed  to  him  false  to  what  he  had  seen  of  life  in 
having  all  those  things  happen  just  so,  to  fret  the  con 
science  and  torment  the  soul  of  the  guilty  man ;  he 
thought  that  in  reality  they  would  not  have  been  quite 
so  pat ;  it  gave  him  rather  a  low  opinion  of  Shake 
speare,  lower  than  he  would  have  dared  to  have  if  he 
had  been  a  more  cultivated  man.  Now  that  play  came 
back  into  his  mind,  and  he  owned  with  a  pang  that  it 
was  all  true.  He  was  being  quite  as  aptly  visited  for 
his  transgression ;  his  heart  was  being  wrung,  too,  by 
the  very  things  that  could  hurt  it  most.  He  had  not 
been  very  well  of  late,  and  was  not  feeling  physically 
strong  ;  his  anxieties  had  preyed  upon  him,  and  he  had 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  31 

never  felt  the  need  of  the  comfort  and  quiet  of  his 
home  so  much  as  now  when  he  was  forced  to  leave  it. 
Never  had  it  all  been  so  precious ;  never  had  the 
beauty  and  luxury  of  it  seemed  so  great.  All  that 
was  nothing,  though,  to  the  thought  of  his  children, 
especially  of  that  youngest  child,  whom  his  heart  was 
so  wrapt  up  in,  and  whom  he  was  going  to  leave 
to  shame  and  ruin.  The  words  she  had  spoken  from 
her  pride  in  him,  her  ignorant  censure  of  that  drunkard, 
as  a  man  who  had  better  die  since  he  had  become  noth 
ing  but  a  burden  and  disgrace  to  his  family,  stung  on 
as  if  by  incessant  repetition.  He  had  crazy  thoughts, 
impulses,  fantasies,  in  which  he  swiftly  dreamed  renun 
ciation  of  escape.  Then  he  knew  that  it  would  not 
avail  anything  to  remain  ;  it  would  not  avail  anything 
even  to  die ;  nothing  could  avail  anything  at  once,  but 
in  the  end,  his  going  would  avail  most.  He  must  go ; 
it  would  break  the  child's  heart  to  face  his  shame,  and 
she  must  face  it.  He  did  not  think  of  his  eldest 
daughter,  except  to  think  that  the  impending  disaster 
could  not  affect  her  so  ruinously. 

"My  God,  my  God!"  he  groaned,  as  he  went  up 
stairs.  Adeline  called  from  the  room  he  had  left, 
"  Did  you  speak,  father  ?  " 

He  had  a  conscience,  that  mechanical  conscience 
which  becomes  so  active  in  times  of  great  moral 
obliquity,  against  telling  a  little  lie,  and  saying  he  had 
not  spoken.  He  went  on  up  stairs  without  answering 
anything.  He  indulged  the  self  pity,  a  little  longer, 
of  feeling  himself  an  old  man  forced  from  his  home, 
3 


32  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

and  he  had  a  blind  reasonless  resentment  of  the  be 
havior  of  the  men  who  were  driving  him  away,  and 
whose  interests,  even  at  that  moment,  he  was  mindful 
of.  But  he  threw  off  this  mood  when  he  entered  his 
room,  and  settled  himself  to  business.  There  was  a 
good  deal  to  be  done  in  the  arrangement  of  papers  for 
his  indefinite  absence,  and  he  used  the  same  care  in 
providing  for  some  minor  contingencies  in  the  com 
pany's  affairs  as  in  leaving  instructions  to  his  children 
for  their  action  until  they  should  hear  from  him  again. 
Afterwards  this  curious  scrupulosity  became  a  matter 
of  comment  among  those  privy  to  it;  some  held  it 
another  proof  of  the  ingrained  rascality  of  the  man,  a 
trick  to  suggest  lenient  construction  of  his  general 
conduct  in  the  management  of  the  company's  finances, 
others  saw  in  it  an  interesting  example  of  the  invol 
untary  operation  of  business  instincts  which  persisted 
at  a  juncture  when  the  man  might  be  supposed  to  have 
been  actuated  only  by  the  most  intensely  selfish  motives. 
The  question  was  not  settled  even  in  the  final  retro 
spect,  when  it  appeared  that  at  the  very  moment  that 
Northwick  showed  himself  mindful  of  the  company's 
interests  on  those  minor  points,  he  was  defrauding  it 
further  in  the  line  of  his  defalcations,  and  keeping 
back  a  large  sum  of  money  that  belonged  to  it.  But 
at  that  moment  Northwick  did  not  consider  that  this 
money  necessarily  belonged  to  the  company,  any  more 
than  his  daughters'  house  and  farm  belonged  to  it.  To 
be  sure  it  was  the  fruit  of  money  he  had  borrowed  or 
taken  from  the  company  and  had  used  in  an  enor- 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  33 

mously  successful  deal ;  but  the  company  had  not 
earned  it,  and  in  driving  him  into  a  corner,  in  forcing 
him  to  make  instant  restitution  of  all  its  involuntary 
loans,  it  was  justifying  him  in  withholding  this  part  of 
them.  Northwick  was  a  man  of  too  much  sense  to 
reason  explicitly  to  this  effect,  but  there  was  a  sophis 
try,  tacitly  at  work  in  him  to  this  effect,  which  made 
it  possible  for  him  to  go  on  and  steal  more  where  he 
had  already  stolen  so  much.  In  fact  it  presented  the 
further  theft  as  a  sort  of  duty.  This  sum,  large  as  it 
was,  really  amounted  to  nothing  in  comparison  with 
the  sum  he  owed  the  company ;  but  it  formed  his 
only  means  of  restitution,  and  if  he  did  not  take  it  and 
use  it  to  that  end,  he  might  be  held  recreant  to  his 
moral  obligations.  He  contended,  from  that  vesti 
bule  of  his  soul  where  he  was  not  a  thief,  with  that 
self  of  his  inmost  where  he  was  a  thief,  that  it  was 
all  most  fortunate,  if  not  providential,  as  it  had  fallen 
out.  Not  only  had  his  broker  sent  him  that  large 
check  for  his  winnings  in  stocks  the  day  before,  but 
Northwick  had,  contrary  to  his  custom,  cashed  the 
check,  and  put  the  money  in  his  safe  instead  of  bank 
ing  it.  Now  he  could  perceive  a  leading  in  the  whole 
matter,  though  at  the  time  it  seemed  a  flagrant  defi 
ance  of  chance,  and  a  sort  of  invitation  to  burglars. 
He  seemed  to  himself  like  a  burglar,  when  he  had 
locked  the  doors  and  pulled  down  the  curtains,  and 
stood  before  the  safe  working  the  combination.  He 
trembled,  and  when  at  last  the  mechanism  announced 
its  effect,  with  a  slight  click  of  the  withdrawing  bolt, 


34  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

he  gave  a  violent  start.  At  the  same  time  there  came 
a  rough  knock  at  the  door,  and  Northwick  called  out 
in  the  choking,  incoherent  voice  of  one  suddenly  roused 
from  sleep  :  "  Hello !  Who's  there  ?  What  is  it  ?  " 

"  It's  me,"  said  Elbridge. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  Well !  All  right !  Hold  on,  a  minute ! 
Ah  —  you  can  come  back  in  ten  or  fifteen  minutes. 
I'm  not  quite  ready  for  you,  yet."  Northwick  spoke 
the  first  broken  sentences  from  the  safe,  where  lie  stood 
in  a  frenzy  of  dismay ;  the  more  collected  words  were 
uttered  from  his  desk,  where  he  ran  to  get  his  pistol. 
He  did  not  know  why  he  thought  Elbridge  might  try 
to  force  his  way  in ;  perhaps  it  was  because  any  pres 
ence  on  the  outside  of  the  door  would  have  terrified 
him.  He  had  time  to  recognize  that  he  was  not  afraid 
for  the  money,  but  that  he  was  afraid  for  himself  in 
the  act  of  taking  it. 

Elbridge  gave  a  cough  on  the  other  side  of  the  door, 
and  said  with  a  little  hesitation,  "  All  right,"  and  North- 
wick  heard  him  tramp  away,  and  go  down  stairs. 

He  went  back  to  the  safe  and  pulled  open  the  heavy 
door,  whose  resistance  helped  him  shake  off  his  ner 
vousness.  Then  he  took  the  money  from  the  drawer 
where  he  had  laid  it,  counted  it,  slipped  it  into  the  inner 
pocket  of  his  waistcoat,  and  buttoned  it  in  there.  He 
shut  the  safe  and  locked  it.  The  succession  of  these 
habitual  acts  calmed  him  more  and  more,  and  after  he 
had  struck  a  match  and  kindled  the  fire  on  his  hearth, 
which  he  had  hitherto  forgotten,  he  was  able  to  settle 
again  to  his  preparations  in  writing. 


VI. 

WHEN  Elbridge  came  back,  Northwick  called  out, 
"  Come  in !  "  and  then  went  and  unlocked  the  door  for 
him.  "I  forgot  it  was  locked,"  he  said,  carelessly. 
"  Do  you  think  the  colt's  going  to  be  lame  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  don't  like  the  way  she  behaves,  very  well. 
Them  shoes  have  got  to  come  off."  Elbridge  stood  at 
the  corner  of  the  desk,  and  diffused  a  strong  smell  of 
stable  through  the  hot  room. 

"  You'll  see  to  it,  of  course,"  said  Northwick.  "  I'm 
going  away  in  the  morning,  and  I  don't  know  just  how 
long  I  shall  be  gone."  Northwick  satisfied  his  mechan 
ical  scruple  against  telling  a  lie  by  this  formula ;  and 
in  its  shelter  he  went  on  to  give  EJ bridge  instructions 
about  the  management  of  the  place  in  his  absence.  He 
took  some  monev  from  his  pocket-book  and  handed  it 
to  him  for  certain  expenses,  and  then  he  said,  "  I  want 
to  take  the  five  o'clock  train,  that  reaches  Ponkwasset 
at  nine.  You  can  drive  me  up  with  the  black  mare." 

"  All  right,"  said  Elbridge ;  but  his  tone  expressed 
a  shadow  of  reluctance  that  did  not  escape  Northwick. 

"Anything  the  matter?"  he  asked. 

"  I  dunno.  Our  little  boy  don't  seem  to  be  very 
well." 

"What  ails  him?"  asked  Northwick,  with  the  sym 
pathy  it  was  a  relief  for  him  to  feel. 


36  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Well,  Dr.  MorrelPs  just  been  there,  and  lie's  afraid 
it's  the  membranous  crou  —  "  The  last  letter  stuck  in 
Elbridge's  throat ;  he  gulped  it  down. 

"  Oh,  I  hope  not,"  said  Northwick. 

"  lie's  comin'  back  again  —  he  had  to  go  off  to  an 
other  place  —  but  I  could  see  'twa'n't  no  use,"  said 
Elbridge  with  patient  despair ;  he  had  got  himself  in 
hand  again,  and  spoke  clearly. 

Northwick  shrank  back  from  the  shadow  sweeping 
so  near  him ;  a  shadow  thrown  from  the  skies,  no 
doubt,  but  terrible  in  its  blackness  on  the  earth. 
"  Why,  of  course,  you  mustn't  think  of  leaving  your 
wife.  You  must  telephone  Simpson  to  come  for  me." 

"  All  right."     Elbridge  took  himself  away. 

Northwick  watched  him  across  the  icy  stable-yard, 
going  to  the  coachman's  quarters  in  that  cosy  corner 
of  the  spreading  barn;  the  windows  were  still  as 
cheerily  bright  with  lamplight  as  when  they  struck 
a  pang  of  dumb  envy  to  Northwick's  heart.  The 
child's  sickness  must  have  been  very  sudden  for  his 
daughters  not  to  have  known  of  it.  He  thought  he 
ought  to  call  Adeline,  and  send  her  in  there  to  those 
poor  people ;  but  he  reflected  that  she  could  do  no 
good,  and  he  spared  her  the  useless  pain;  she  would 
soon  need  all  her  strength  for  herself.  His  thought 
returned  to  his  own  cares,  from  which  the  trouble  of 
another  had  lured  it  for  a  moment.  But  when  he 
heard  the  doctor's  sleighbells  clash  into  the  stable-yard, 
he  decided  to  go  himself  and  show  the  interest  his 
family  ought  to  feel  in  the  matter. 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  37 

No  one  answered  his  knock  at  Elbridge's  door,  and 
he  opened  it  and  found  his  way  into  the  room,  where 
Elbridge  and  his  wife  were  with  the  doctor.  The 
little  boy  had  started  up  in  his  crib,  and  was  strug 
gling,  with  his  arms  thrown  wildly  about. 

"  There  !  There,  he's  got  another  of  them  chokin' 
spells  !  "  screamed  the  mother.  "  Elbridge  Newton, 
ain't  you  goin'  to  do  anything?  Oh  help  him,  save 
him,  Dr.  Morrell !  Oh,  I  should  think  you'd  be 
ashamed  to  let  him  suffer  so !  "  She  sprang  upon 
the  child,  and  caught  him  from  the  doctor's  hands, 
and  turned  him  this  way  and  that  trying  to  ease  him ; 
he  was  suddenly  quiet,  and  she  said,  "There,  I  just 
knew  I  could  do  it !  What  are  you  big,  strong  men 
good  for,  any  —  "  She  looked  down  at  the  child's 
face  in  her  arms,  and  then  up  at  the  doctor's,  and  she 
gave  a  wild  screech,  like  the  cry  of  one  in  piercing 
torment. 

It  turned  Northwick  heart-sick.  He  felt  himself 
worse  than  helpless  there ;  but  he  went  to  the  farmer's 
house,  and  told  the  farmer's  wife  to  go  over  to  the 
Newton s' ;  their  little  boy  had  just  died.  He  heard 
her  coming  before  he  reached  his  own  door,  and  when 
he  reached  his  room,  he  heard  the  bells  of  the  doctor's 
sleigh  clashing  out  of  the  avenue. 

The  voice  and  the  look  of  that  childless  mother 
haunted  him.  She  had  been  one  of  the  hat-shop  hands, 
a  flighty,  nervous  thing,  madly  in  love  with  Elbridge, 
whom  she  ruled  with  a  sort  of  frantic  devotion  since 
their  marriage,  compensating  his  cool  quiet  with  a 


38  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

perpetual  flutter  of  exaggerated  sensibilities  in  every 
direction.  But  somehow  she  had  put  Northwick  in 
mind  of  his  own  mother,  and  he  thought  of  the  chance 
or  the  will  that  had  bereaved  one  and  spared  the 
other,  and  he  envied  the  little  boy  who  had  just  died. 

He  considered  the  case  of  the  parents  who  would 
want  to  make  full  outward  show  of  their  grief,  and  he 
wrote  Elbridge  a  note,  to  be  given  him  in  the  morn 
ing,  and  enclosed  one  of  the  bills  he  was  taking  from 
the  company ;  he  hoped  Elbridge  would  accept  it  from 
him  towards  the  expenses  he  must  meet  at  such  a  time. 

Then  he  wheeled  his  chair  about  to  the  fire  and 
stretched  his  legs  out  to  get  what  rest  he  could  before 
the  hour  of  starting.  He  would  have  liked  to  go  to 
bed,  but  he  was  afraid  of  oversleeping  himself  in  case 
Elbridge  had  neglected  to  telephone  Simpson.  But 
he  did  not  believe  this  possible,  and  he  had  smoothly 
confided  himself  to  his  experience  of  Elbridge's  infalli 
bility,  when  he  started  awake  at  the  sound  of  bells 
before  the  front  door,  and  then  the  titter  of  the  elec 
tric  bell  over  his  bed  in  the  next  room.  He  thought 
it  was  an  officer  come  to  arrest  him,  but  he  remem 
bered  that  only  his  household  was  acquainted  with  the 
use  of  that  bell,  and  then  he  wondered  that  Simpson 
should  have  found  it  out.  He  put  on  his  overcoat  and 
arctics  and  caught  up  his  bag,  and  hurried  down  stairs 
and  out  of  doors.  It  was  Elbridge  who  was  waiting 
for  him  on  the  threshold,  and  took  his  bag  from  him. 

"  Why  !  Where's  Simpson  ?  "  he  asked.  "  Couldn't 
you  get  him  ?  " 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  39 

"  It's  all  right,"  said  Elbridge,  opening  the  door  of 
the  booby,  and  gently  bundling  North  wick  into  it. 
"  I  could  come  just's  easy  as  not.  I  thought  you'd 
ride  better  in  the  booby ;  it's  a  little  mite  chilly  for 
the  cutter."  The  stars  seemed  points  of  ice  in  the 
freezing  sky ;  the  broken  snow  clinked  like  charcoal 
around  Elbridge's  feet.  He  shut  the  booby  door  and 
then  came  back  and  opened  it  slightly.  "  I  wa'n't 
agoin'  to  let  no  Simpson  carry  you  to  no  train,  noway." 

The  tears  came  into  North  wick's  eyes,  and  he  tried 
to  say,  "  Why,  thank  you,  Elbridge,"  but  the  door  shut 
upon  his  failure,  and  Elbridge  mounted  to  his  place 
and  drove  away.  Northwick  had  been  able  to  get  out 
of  his  house  only  upon  condition  that  he  should  behave 
as  if  he  were  going  to  be  gone  on  an  ordinary  journey. 
He  had  to  keep  the  same  terms  with  himself  on  the 
way  to  the  station.  When  he  got  out  there  he  said 
to  Elbridge,  "  I've  left  a  note  for  you  on  my  desk. 
I'm  sorry  to  be  leaving  home  —  at  such  a  time  —  when 
you've  —  " 

"You'll  telegraph  when  to  meet  you?"  Elbridge 
suggested. 

"Yes,"  said  Northwick.  He  went  inside  the  sta 
tion,  which  was  deliciously  warm  from  the  large  regis 
ter  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  and  brilliantly  lighted  in 
readiness  for  the  train  now  almost  due.  The  closing 
of  the  door  behind  Northwick  roused  a  little  black 
figure  drooping  forward  on  the  benching  in  one  corner. 
It  was  the  drunken  lawyer.  There  had  been  some 
displeasures,  general  and  personal,  between  the  two 


40  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

men,  and  they  did  not  speak ;  but  now,  at  sight  of 
Northwick,  Putney  came  forward,  arid  fixed  him 
severely  with  his  eye. 

"  Northwick  !  Do  you  know  who  you  tried  to  drive 
over,  last  evening  ?  " 

Northwick  returned  his  regard  with  the  half-ironical, 
half-patronizing  look  a  dull  man  puts  on  with  a  person 
of  less  fortune  but  more  brain.  "  I  didn't  see  you,  Mr. 
Putney,  until  I  was  quite  upon  you.  The  horses  —  " 

"It  was  the  Law  you  tried  to  drive  over!"  thun 
dered  the  little  man  with  a  voice  out  of  keeping  with 
his  slender  body.  "  Don't  try  it  too  often !  You  can't 
drive  over  the  Law,  yet  —  you  haven't  quite  millions 
enough  for  that.  Heigh  ?  That  so  ?  "  he  queried,  sen 
sible  of  the  anti-climax  of  asking  such  a  question  in 
that  way,  but  tipsily  helpless  in  it. 

Northwick  did  not  answer ;  he  walked  to  the  other 
end  of  the  station  set  off  for  ladies,  and  Putney  did 
not  follow  him.  The  train  came  in,  and  Northwick 
went  out  and  got  aboard. 


VIL 

THE  president  of  the  Board,  who  had  called  North- 
wick  a  thief,  and  yet  had  got  him  a  chance  to  make 
himself  an  honest  man,  was  awake  at  the  hour  the 
defaulter  absconded,  after  passing  quite  as  sleepless  a 
night.  He  had  kept  a  dinner  engagement,  hoping  to 
forget  Northwick,  but  he  seemed  to  be  eating  and 
drinking  him  at  every  course.  When  he  came  home 
toward  eleven  o'clock,  he  went  to  his  library  and  sat 
down  before  the  fire.  His  wife  had  gone  to  bed,  and 
his  son  and  daughter  were  at  a  ball ;  and  he  sat  there 
alone,  smoking  impatiently. 

He  told  the  man  who  looked  in  to  see  if  he  wanted 
anything  that  he  might  go  to  bed  ;  he  need  not  sit  up 
for  the  young  people.  Hilary  had  that  kind  of  con 
sideration  for  servants,  and  he  liked  to  practise  it ;  he 
liked  to  realize  that  he  was  practising  it  now,  in  a 
moment  when  every  habit  of  his  life  might  very  well 
yield  to  the  great  and  varying  anxieties  which  beset 
him. 

He  had  an  ideal  of  conduct,  of  what  was  due  from 
him  to  himself,  as  a  gentleman  and  a  citizen,  and  he 
could  not  conceal  from  himself  that  he  had  been  mainly 
instrumental  in  the  escape  of  a  rogue  from  justice, 
when  he  got  the  Board  to  give  Northwick  a  chance. 


42  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

His  ideals  had  not  hitherto  stood  in  the  way  of  his 
comfort,  his  entire  repose  of  mind,  any  more  than  they 
had  impaired  his  prosperity,  though  they  were  of  a 
kind  far  above  those  which  commercial  honor  permits 
a  man  to  be  content  with.  He  held  himself  bound, 
as  a  man  of  a  certain  origin  and  social  tradition,  to 
have  public  spirit,  and  he  had  a  great  deal  of  it.  He 
believed  that  he  owed  it  to  the  community  to  do  noth 
ing  to  lower  its  standards  of  personal  integrity  and 
responsibility  ;  and  he  distinguished  himself  by  a  grati 
fied  consciousness  from  those  people  of  chromo-mo- 
rality,  who  held  all  sorts  of  loose  notions  on  such 
points.  His  name  stood  not  merely  for  so  much 
money  ;  many  names  stood  for  far  more  ;  but  it  meant 
reliability,  it  meant  honesty,  it  meant  good  faith.  He 
really  loved  these  things,  though,  no  doubt,  he  loved 
them  less  for  their  own  sake  than  because  they  were 
spiritual  properties  of  Eben  Hilary.  He  did  not  expect 
everybody  else  to  have  them,  but  his  theory  of  life 
exacted  that  they  should  be  held  the  chief  virtues.  He 
was  so  conscious  of  their  value  that  he  ignored  all  those 
minor  qualities  in  himself  which  rendered  him  not  only 
bearable  but  even  lovable ;  he  was  not  aware  of  hav 
ing  any  sort  of  foibles,  so  that  any  error  of  conduct  in 
himself  surprised  him  even  more  than  it  pained  him. 
It  was  not  easy  to  recognize  it ;  but  when  he  once  saw 
it,  he  was  not  only  willing  but  eager  to  repair  it. 

The  error  that  he  had  committed  in  Northwick's 
case,  if  it  was  an  error,  was  one  that  presented  pecu 
liar  difficulties,  as  every  error  in  life  does  ;  the  errors 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  43 

love  an  infinite  complexity  of  disguise,  and  masquerade 
as  all  sorts  of  things.  There  were  moments  when 
Hilary  saw  his  mistake  so  clearly  that  it  seemed  to 
him  nothing  less  than  the  repayment  of  Northwick's 
thefts  from  his  own  pocket  would  satisfy  the  claims  of 
justice  to  his  fellow-losers  if  North  wick  ran  away ; 
and  then  again,  it  looked  like  the  act  of  wise  mercy 
which  it  had  appeared  to  him  when  he  was  urging  the 
Board  to  give  the  man  a  chance  as  the  only  thing 
which  they  could  hopefully  do  in  the  circumstances, 
as  common  sense,  as  business.  But  it  was  now  so  ob 
vious  that  a  man  like  Northwick  could  and  would  do 
nothing  but  run  away  if  he  were  given  the  chance, 
that  he  seemed  to  have  been  his  accomplice  when  he 
used  the  force  of  his  personal  character  with  them  in 
Northwick's  behalf.  He  was  in  a  ridiculous  position, 
there  was  no  doubt  of  that,  and  he  was  not  going  to 
get  out  of  it  without  much  painful  wear  and  tear  of 
pride,  of  self-respect. 

After  a  long  time  he  looked  at  the  clock,  and  found 
it  still  early  for  the  return  of  his  young  people.  He 
was  impatient  to  see  his  son,  and  to  get  the  situation 
in  the  light  of  his  mind,  and  see  how  it  looked  there. 
He  had  already  told  him  of  the  defalcation,  arid  of 
what  the  Board  had  decided  to  do  with  Northwick ; 
but  this  was  while  he  was  still  in  the  glow  of  action, 
and  he  had  spoken  very  hurriedly  with  Matt  who 
came  in  just  as  he  was  going  out  to  dinner;  it  was 
before  his  cold  fit  came  on. 

He  had  reached  that  time  of  life  when  a  man  likes 


44  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

to  lay  his  troubles  before  his  son  ;  and  in  the  view  his 
son  usually  took  of  his  troubles,  Hilary  seemed  to  find 
another  mood  of  his  own.  It  was  a  fresher,  different 
self  dealing  with  them ;  for  the  fellow  was  not  only 
younger  and  more  vigorous  ;  he  was  another  temper 
ament  with  the  same  interests,  and  often  the  same 
principles.  He  had  disappointed  Hilary  in  some  ways, 
but  he  had  gratified  his  pride  in  the  very  ways  he  had 
disappointed  him.  The  father  had  expected  the  son 
to  go  into  business,  and  Matt  did  go  into  the  mills  at 
Ponkwasset,  where  he  was  to  be  superintendent  in  the 
natural  course.  But  one  day  he  came  home  and  told 
his  father  that  he  had  begun  to  have  his  doubts  of  the 
existing  relations  of  labor  and  capital;  and  until  he 
could  see  his  way  clearer  he  would  rather  give  up  his 
chance  with  the  company.  It  was  a  keen  disappoint 
ment  to  Hilary ;  he  made  no  concealment  of  that ;  but 
he  did  not  quarrel  with  his  son  about  it.  He  robustly 
tolerated  Matt's  queer  notions,  not  only  because  he 
was  a  father  who  blindly  doted  on  his  children  and  be 
haved  as  if  everything  they  did  was  right,  no  matter 
if  it  put  him  in  the  wrong,  but  because  he  chose  to 
respect  the  fellow's  principles,  if  those  were  his  princi 
ples.  He  had  his  own  principles,  and  Matt  should  have 
his  if  he  liked.  He  bore  entirely  well  the  purpose 
of  going  abroad  that  Matt  expressed,  and  he  wished 
to  give  him  much  more  money  than  the  fellow  would 
take,  to  carry  on  those  researches  which  he  made  in 
his  travels.  When  he  came  back  and  published  his 
monograph  on  work  and  wages  in  Europe,  Hilary 


THE    QUALITY    OK    MERCY.  45 

paid  the  expense,  and  took  as  unselfish  an  interest  in 
the  slow  and  meagre  sale  of  the  little  book  as  if  it  had 
cost  him  nothing. 

Eben  Hilary  had  been  a  crank,  too,  in  his  day,  so 
far  as  to  have  gone  counter  to  the  most  respectable 
feeling  of  business  in  Boston,  when  he  came  out  an 
abolitionist.  His  individual  impulse  to  radicalism  had 
exhausted  itself  in  that  direction  ;  we  are  each  of  us 
good  for  only  a  certain  degree  of  advance  in  opinion  ; 
few  men  are  indefinitely  progressive  ;  and  Hilary  had 
not  caught  on  to  the  movement  that  was  carrying  his 
son  with  it.  But  he  understood  how  his  son  should  be 
what  he  was,  and  he  loved  him  so  much  that  he 
almost  honored  him  for  what  he  called  his  balderdash 
about  industrial  slavery.  His  heart  lifted  when  at  last 
he  heard  the  scratching  of  the  night-latch  at  the  door 
below,  and  he  made  lumbering  haste  down  stairs  to 
open  and  let  the  young  people  in.  He  reached  the 
door  as  they  opened  it,  and  in  the  momentary  lightness 
of  his  soul  at  sight  of  his  children,  he  gave  them  a  gay 
welcome,  and  took  his  daughter,  all  a  fluff  of  soft 
silken  and  furry  wraps,  into  his  arms. 

"  Oh,  don't  kiss  my  nose  !  "  she  called  out.  "  It'll 
freeze  you  to  death,  papa !  What  in  the  world  are 
you  up,  for  ?  Anything  the  matter  with  mamma  ?  " 

"  No.  She  was  in  bed  when  I  came  home ;  I 
thought  I  would  sit  up  and  ask  what  sort  of  a  time 
you'd  had." 

"  Did  you  ever  know  me  to  have  a  bad  one  ?  I  had 
the  best  time  in  the  world.  I  danced  every  dance,  and 


46  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

I  enjoyed  it  just  as  much  as  if  I  liad  '  shut  and  been  a 
Bud  again.'  But  don't  you  know  it's  very  bad  for  old 
gentlemen  to  be  up  so  late  ?  " 

They  were  mounting  the  stairs,  and  when  they 
reached  the  library,  she  went  in  and  poked  her  long- 
gloved  hands  well  in  over  the  fire  on  the  hearth  while 
she  lifted  her  eyes  to  the  clock.  "  Oh,  it  isn't  so  very 
late.  Only  five." 

"  No,  it's  early,"  said  her  father  with  the  security  in 
a  feeble  joke  which  none  but  fathers  can  feel  with 
none  b'ut  their  grown-up  daughters.  "It's  full  an 
hour  yet  before  Matt  would  be  getting  up  to  feed  his 
cattle,  if  he  were  in  Yardley."  Hilary  had  given  Matt 
the  old  family  place  there ;  and  he  always  liked  to 
make  a  joke  of  his  getting  an  honest  living  by  farm 
ing  it. 

"  Don't  speak  of  that  agricultural  angel !  "  said  the 
girl,  putting  her  draperies  back  with  one  hand  and 
confining  them  with  her  elbow,  so  as  to  give  her  other 
hand  greater  comfort  of  the  fire.  To  do  better  yet 
she  dropped  on  both  knees  before  it. 

"  Was  he  nice  ?  "  asked  the  father,  with  confidence. 

"  Nice !  Ask  all  the  plain  girls  he  danced  with,  all 
the  dull  girls  he  talked  with !  When  I  think  what  a 
good  time  I  should  have  with  him  as  a  plain  girl,  if  I 
were  not  his  sister,  I  lose  all  patience."  She  glanced 
up  in  her  father's  face,  with  all  the  strange  charm 
of  features  that  had  no  regular  beauty ;  and  then, 
as  she  had  to  do  whenever  she  remembered  them, 
she  asserted  the  grace  which  governed  every  movement 


THE    QUALITY    OP    MERCY.  47 

and  gesture  in  her,  and  got  as  lightly  to  her  feet  as  if 
she  were  a  wind-bowed  flower  tilting  back  to  its  per 
pendicular.  Her  father  looked  at  her  with  as  fond  a 
delight  as  a  lover  could  have  felt  in  her  fascination. 
She  was,  in  fact,  a  youthful,  feminine  version  of  him 
self  in  her  plainness ;  though  the  grace  was  all  her 
own.  Her  complexion  was  not  the  leathery  red  of 
her  father's,  but  a  smooth  and  even  white  from  cheek 
to  throat.  She  let  her  loose  cloak  fall  to  the  chair 
behind  her,  and  showed  herself  tall  and  slim,  with 
that  odd  visage  of  hers  drooping  from  a  perfect  neck. 
"  Why,"  she  said,  "  if  we  had  all  been  horned  cattle, 
he  couldn't  have  treated  us  better." 

"  Do  you  hear  that,  Matt  ?  "  asked  the  father,  as  his 
son  came  in,  after  a  methodical  and  deliberate  bestowal 
of  his  outer  garments  below ;  his  method  and  his  delib 
eration  were  part  of  the  joke  of  him  in  the  family. 

"  Complaining  of  me  for  making  her  walk  home  ?  " 
he  asked  in  turn,  with  the  quiet  which  was  another 
part  of  the  joke.  "  I  didn't  suppose  you'd  give  me 
away,  Louise." 

"  I  didn't ;  I  knew  I  only  had  to  wait  and  you  would 
give  yourself  away,"  said  the  girl. 

"  Did  he  make  you  walk  home  ?  "  said  the  father. 
"  That's  the  reason  your  hands  are  so  cold." 

"They're  not  very  cold — -now;  and  if  they  were, 
I  shouldn't  mind  it  in  such  a  cause." 

"What  cause?" 

"  Oh  the  general  shamefulness  of  disusing  the  feet 
God  had  given  me.  But  it  was  only  three  blocks,  and 


48  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

I  had  my  arctics."  She  moved  a  little  away  toward 
the  fire  again  and  showed  the  arctics  on  the  floor  where 
she  must  have  been  scuffling  them  off  under  her  skirts. 
"  Ugh !  But  it's  cold !  "  She  now  stretched  a  satin 
slipper  in  toward  the  fire. 

"  Yes,  it's  a  cold  night ;  but  you  seem  to  have  got 
home  alive,  and  I  don't  think  you'll  be  the  worse  for 
it  now, if  you  go  to  bed  at  once,"  said  her  father. 

"  Is  that  a  hint  ?  "  she  asked,  with  a  dreamy  appre 
ciation  of  the  warmth  through  the  toe  of  her  slipper. 

"  Not  at  all ;  we  should  be  glad  to  have  you  sit  up 
the  whole  night  with  us." 

"Ah,  now  I  know  you're  hinting.     Is  it  business?  " 

"  Yes,  it's  business." 

"  Well,  I'm  just  in  the  humor  for  business ;  I've 
had  enough  pleasure." 

"  I  don't  see  why  Louise  shouldn't  stay  and  talk 
business  with  us,  if  she  likes.  I  think  it's  a  pity  to 
keep  women  out  of  it,  as  if  it  didn't  concern  them," 
said  the  son.  "  Nine-tenths  of  the  time  it  concerns 
them  more  than  it  docs  men."  He  had  a  bright, 
friendly,  philosophical  smile  in  saying  this,  and  he 
stood  waiting  for  his  sister  to  be  gone,  with  a  patience 
which  their  father  did  not  share.  He  stood  something 
over  six  feet  in  his  low  shoes,  and  his  powerful  frame 
seemed  starting  out  of  the  dress-suit,  which  it  appeared 
so  little  related  to.  His  whole  face  was  handsome  and 
regular,  and  his  full  beard  did  not  wholly  hide  a 
mouth  of  singular  sweetness. 

"  Yes ;    I  think  so   too,  in   the   abstract,"  said  the 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  49 

father.     "  If  the  business  were  mine,  or  were  business 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term  — " 

"Why,  why  did  you  say  it  was  business  at  all, 
then?"  The  girl  put  her  arms  round  her  father's 
neck  and  let  her  head-scarf  fall  on  the  rug  a  little  way 
from  her  cloak  and  her  arctics.  "  If  you  hadn't  said 
it  was  business,  I  should  have  been  in  bed  long  ago." 
Then,  as  if  feeling  her  father's  eagerness  to  have 
her  gone,  she  said,  "Good  night,"  and  gave  him  a 
kiss,  and  a  hug  or  two  more,  and  said  "  Good  night, 
Matt,"  and  got  herself  away,  letting  a  long  glove  trail 
somewhere  out  of  her  dress,  and  stretch  its  weak 
length  upon  the  floor  after  her,  as  if  it  were  trying  to 
follow  her. 


VIII. 

LOUISE'S  father,  in  turning  to  look  from  her  toward 
his  son,  felt  himself  slightly  pricked  in  the  cheek  by 
the  pin  that  had  transferred  itself  from  her  neck-gear 
to  his  coat  collar,  and  Matt  went  about  picking  up  the 
cloak,  the  arctics,  the  scarf  and  the  glove.  He  laid 
the  cloak  smoothly  on  the  leathern  lounge,  and  ar 
ranged  the  scarf  and  glove  on  it,  and  set  the  arctics 
on  the  floor  in  a  sort  of  normal  relation  to  it,  and  then 
came  forward  in  time  to  relieve  his  father  of  the  pin 
that  was  pricking  him,  and  that  he  was  rolling  his 
eyes  out  of  his  head  to  get  sight  of. 

"  What  in  the  devil  is  that  ?  "  he  roared. 

"  Louise's  pin,"  said  Matt,  as  placidly  as  if  that  were 
quite  the  place  for  it,  and  its  function  were  to  prick 
her  father  in  the  cheek.  He  went  and  pinned  it  into 
her  scarf,  and  then  he  said,  "  It's  about  Northwick,  I 
suppose." 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father,  still  furious  from  the  pin 
prick.  "  I'm  afraid  the  miserable  scoundrel  is  going 
to  run  away." 

"Did  you  expect  there  was  a  chance  of  that?" 
asked  Matt,  quietly. 

"Expect!"  his  father  blustered.  "I  don't  know 
what  I  expected.  I  might  have  expected  anything  of 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  51 

him  but  common  honesty.  The  position  I  took  at  the 
meeting  was  that  our  only  hope  was  to  give  him  a 
chance.  He  made  all  sorts  of  professions  of  ability  to 
meet  the  loss.  I  didn't  believe  him,  but  I  thought 
that  he  might  partially  meet  it,  and  that  nothing  was 
to  be  gained  by  proceeding  against  him.  You  can't 
get  blood  out  of  a  turnip,  even  by  crushing  the  turnip." 

"  That  seems  sound,"  said  the  son,  with  his  reason 
able  smile. 

"  I  didn't  spare  him,  but  I  got  the  others  to  spare 
him.  I  told  him  he  was  a  thief." 

"  Oh !  "  said  Matt. 

"Why,  wasn't  he?  "  returned  his  father,  angrily. 

"Yes,  yes.  I  suppose  he  might  be  called  so."  Matt 
admitted  it  with  an  air  of  having  his  reservations,  which 
vexed  his  father  still  more. 

"  Very  well,  sir !  "  he  roared.  "  Then  I  called  him 
so ;  and  I  think  that  it  will  do  him  good  to  know  it." 
Hilary  did  not  repeat  all  of  the  violent  things  he  had 
said  to  Northwick,  though  he  had  meant  to  do  so, 
being  rather  proud  of  them ;  the  tone  of  his  son's  voice 
somehow  stopped  him  for  the  moment.  "  I  brought 
them  round  to  my  position,  and  we  gave  him  the 
chance  he  asked  for." 

"  It  was  really  the  only  thing  you  could  do." 

"  Of  course  it  was !  It  was  the  only  business-like 
thing,  though  it  won't  seem  so  when  it  comes  out  that 
he's  gone  to  Canada.  I  told  him  I  thought  the  best 
thing  for  him  would  be  a  good,  thorough,  railroad  acci 
dent  on  his  way  home  ;  and  that  if  it  were  not  for  his 


52  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

family,  for  his  daughter  who's  been  in  and  out  here  so 
much  with  Louise,  I  would  like  to  see  him  handcuffed, 
and  going  down  the  street  with  a  couple  of  constables." 

Matt  made  no  comment  upon  this,  perhaps  because 
he  saw  no  use  in  criticising  his  father,  and  perhaps 
because  his  mind  was  more  upon  the  point  he  men 
tioned.  "  It  will  be  hard  for  that  pretty  creature." 

"  It  will  be  hard  for  a  number  of  creatures,  pretty 
and  plain,"  said  his  father.  "  It  won't  break  any  of 
us ;  but  it  will  shake  some  of  us  up  abominably.  I 
don't  know  but  it  may  send  one  or  two  people  to  the 
wall,  for  the  time  being." 

"Ah,  but  that  isn't  the  same  thing  at  all.  That's 
suffering;  it  isn't  shame.  It  isn't  the  misery  that  the 
sin  of  your  father  has  brought  on  you." 

"  Well,  of  course  not !  "  said  Hilary,  impatiently 
granting  it.  "  But  Miss  North  wick  always  seemed  to 
me  a  tolerably  tough  kind  of  young  person.  I  never 
quite  saw  what  Louise  found  to  like  in  her." 

"They  were  at  school  together,"  said  the  son. 
"  She's  a  sufficiently  offensive  person,  I  fancy ;  or 
might  be.  But  she  sometimes  struck  me  as  a  person 
that  one  might  be  easily  unjust  to,  for  that  very 
reason  ;  I  suppose  she  has  the  fascination  that  a  proud 
girl  has  for  a  girl  like  Louise." 

Hilary  asked,  with  a  divergence  more  apparent  than 
real,  "  How  is  that  affair  of  hers  with  Jack  Wilming 
ton?" 

"  I  don't  know.  It  seems  to  have  that  quality  of 
mystery  that  belongs  to  all  affairs  of  the  kind  when 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  53 

they  hang  fire.  We  expect  people  to  get  married,  and 
be  done  with  it,  though  that  may  not  really  be  the  way 
to  be  done  with  it." 

"  Wasn't  there  some  scandal  about  him,  of  some 
kind?" 

"  Yes  ;  but  I  never  believed  in  it." 

"  He  always  struck  me  as  something  of  a  cub,  but 
somehow  he  doesn't  seem  the  sort  of  a  fellow  to  give 
the  girl  up  because  — " 

"  Because  her  father  is  a  fraud  ?  "  Matt  suggested. 
"No,  I  don't  think  he  is,  quite.  But  there  are  always 
a  great  many  things  that  enter  into  the  matter  besides  a 
man's  feelings,  or  his  principles,  even.  I  can't  say 
what  I  think  Wilmington  would  do.  What  steps  do 
you  propose  to  take  next  in  the  matter  ?  " 

"  I  promised  him  he  shouldn't  be  followed  up,  while 
he  wras  trying  to  right  himself.  If  we  find  he's  gone, 
we  must  give  the  case  into  the  hands  of  the  detectives, 
I  suppose."  The  disgust  showed  itself  in  Hilary's 
face,  which  was  an  index  to  all  his  emotions,  and  his 
son  said,  with  a  smile  of  sympathy  : 

"The  apparatus  of  justice  isn't  exactly  attractive, 
even  when  one  isn't  a  criminal.  But  I  don't  know 
that  it's  any  more  repulsive  than  the  apparatus  of  com 
merce,  or  business,  as  we  call  it.  Some  dirt  seems  to 
get  on  everybody's  bread  by  the  time  he's  earned  it, 
or  on  his  money  even  when  he's  made  it  in  large  sums 
as  our  class  do." 

The  last  words  gave  the  father  a  chance  to  vent  his 
vexation  with  himself  upon  his  son.  "I  wish  you 


54  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

wouldn't  talk  that  walking-delegate's  rant  with  me, 
Matt.  If  I  let  you  alone  in  your  nonsense,  I  think 
you  may  fitly  take  it  as  a  sign  that  I  wish  to  be  let 
alone  myself." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  young  man.  "I 
didn't  wish  to  annoy  you." 

"  Don't  do  it,  then."  After  a  moment,  Hilary  added 
with  a  return  to  his  own  sense  of  deficiency,  "The 
whole  thing's  as  thoroughly  distasteful  to  me  as  it  can 
be.  But  I  can't  see  how  I  could  have  acted  otherwise 
than  I've  done.  I  know  I've  made  myself  responsible, 
in  a  way,  for  Northwick's  getting  off ;  but  there  was 
really  nothing  to  do  but  to  give  him  the  chance  he 
asked  for.  His  having  abused  it  won't  change  that 
fact  at  all;  but  I  can't  conceal  from  myself  that  I 
half-expected  him  to  abuse  it." 

He  put  this  tentatively,  and  his  son  responded,  "  I 
suppose  that  naturally  inclines  you  to  suppose  he'll 
run  away." 

"Yes." 

"But  your  supposition  doesn't  establish  the  fact." 

"  No.  But  the  question  is  whether  it  doesn't  oblige 
me  to  act  as  if  it  had ;  whether  I  oughtn't,  if  I've  got 
this  suspicion,  to  take  some  steps  at  once  to  find  out 
whether  Northwick's  really  gone  or  not,  arid  to  mix 
myself  actively  up  in  the  catchpole  business  of  his  pur 
suit,  after  I  promised  him  he  shouldn't  be  shadowed 
in  any  way  till  his  three  days  were  over." 

"  It's  a  nice  question,"  said  Matt,  "  or  rather,  it's  a 
nasty  one.  Still,  you've  only  got  your  fears  for  evi- 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  55 

dence,  and  you  must  all  have  had  your  fears  before.  I 
don't  think  that  even  a  bad  conscience  ought  to  hurry 
one  into  the  catchpole  business."  Matt  laughed  again 
with  that  fondness  he  had  for  his  father.  "  Though  as 
for  any  peculiar  disgrace  in  catchpoles  as  catchpoles,  I 
don't  see  it.  They're  a  necessary  part  of  the  adminis 
tration  of  justice,  as  we  understand  it,  and  have  it ; 
and  I  don't  see  how  a  detective  who  arrests,  say,  a 
murderer,  is  not  as  respectably  employed  as  the  judge 
who  sentences  him,  or  the  hangman  who  puts  the  rope 
round  his  neck.  The  distinction  we  make  between 
them  is  one  of  those  tricks  for  shirking  responsibility 
which  are  practised  in  every  part  of  the  system.  Not 
that  I  want  you  to  turn  catchpole.  It's  all  so  sorrow 
ful  and  sickening  that  I  wish  you  hadn't  any  duty  at 
all  in  the  matter.  I  suppose  you  feel  at  least  that  you 
ought  to  let  the  Board  know  that  you  have  your  mis 
givings  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Hilary,  ruefully,  with  his  double  chin 
on  his  breast,  "  I  felt  like  doing  it  at  once  ;  but  there 
was  my  word  to  him!  And  I  wanted  to  talk  with 
you." 

"  It  was  just  as  well  to  let  them  have  their  night's 
rest>  There  isn't  really  anything  to  be  done."  Matt 
rose  from  the  low  chair  where  he  had  been  sprawling, 
and  stretched  his  stalwart  arms  abroad.  "  If  the  man 
was  going  he's  gone  past  recall  by  this  time  ;  and  if  he 
isn't  gone,  there's  no  immediate  cause  for  anxiety." 

"  Then  you  wouldn't  do  anything  at  present  ?  " 

"  I  certainly  shouldn't.     What  could  you  do  ?  " 


56  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

"  Yes,  it  might  as  well  all  go  till  morning,  I  sup 
pose." 

"  Good  night,"  the  son  said,  suggestively,  "  I  sup 
pose  there  isn't  really  anything  more  ?  " 

"  No,  what  could  there  be  ?  You  had  better  go  to 
bed." 

"  And  you,  too,  I  hope,  father." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  go  to  bed  —  as  a  matter  of  form." 

The  son  laughed.  "  I  wish  you  could  carry  your 
formality  so  far  as  to  go  to  sleep,  too.  I  shall." 

"  I  sha'n't  sleep,"  said  the  father,  bitterly.  "  When 
things  like  this  happen,  some  one  has  to  lie  awake  and 
think  about  them." 

"Well,  I  dare  say  Northwick's  doing  that." 

"I  doubt  it,"  said  Hilary.  "I  suspect  Northwick 
is  enjoying  a  refreshing  slumber  on  the  Montreal  ex 
press  somewhere  near  St.  Albans  about  this  time." 

"  I  doubt  if  his  dreams  are  pleasant.  After  all,  he's 
only  going  to  a  larger  prison  if  he's  going  into  exile. 
He  may  be  on  the  Montreal  express,  but  I  guess  he 
isn't  sleeping,"  said  Matt. 

"  Yes,"  his  father  admitted.  "  Poor  devil !  He'd 
much  better  be  dead." 


IX. 

THE  groom  who  drove  Miss  Sue  Northwick  down  to 
the  station  at  noon  that  day,  came  back  without  her 
an  hour  later.  He  brought  word  to  her  sister  that  she 
had  not  found  the  friend  she  expected  to  meet  at  the 
station,  but  had  got  a  telegram  from  her  there,  and 
had  gone  into  town  to  lunch  with  her.  The  man  was 
to  return  and  fetch  her  from  the  six  o'clock  train. 

She  briefly  explained  at  dinner  that  her  friend  had 
been  up  at  four  balls  during  the  week,  and  wished  to 
beg  off  from  the  visit  she  had  promised  until  after  the 
fifth,  which  was  to  be  that  night. 

u  I  don't  see  how  she  lives  through  it,"  said  Adeline. 
"  And  at  her  age,  it  seems  very  odd  to  be  just  as  fond 
of  dancing  as  if  she  were  a  bud." 

"  Louise  is  only  twenty-three,"  said  Suzette.  "  If 
she  were  married,  she  would  be  just  in  the  heart  of 
her  gayeties  at  that  age,  or  even  older." 

"  But  she  isn't  married,  and  that  makes  all  the  dif 
ference." 

"  Her  brother  is  spending  the  month  at  home,  and 
she  makes  the  most  of  his  being  with  them." 

"  Has  he  given  up  his  farming  ?     It's  about  time." 

"  No ;  not  at  all,  I  believe.  She  says  he's  in  Bos 
ton  merely  as  a  matter  of  duty,  to  chaperon  her  at 


58  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

parties,  and  save  her  mother  from  having  to  go  with 
her." 

"Well,"  said  Adeline,  "I  should  think  he  would 
want  to  be  of  some  use  in  the  world ;  and  if  he  won't 
help  his  father  in  business,  he  had  better  help  his 
mother  in  society." 

Suzette  sat  fallen  back  in  her  chair  for  the  moment, 
and  she  said  as  if  she  had  not  heeded,  "  I  think  I  will 
give  a  little  dance  here,  next  week.  Louise  can  come 
up  for  a  couple  of  days,  and  we  can  have  it  Thursday. 
We  made  out  the  list  —  just  a  few  people.  She  went 
out  with  me  after  lunch,  and  we  saw  most  of  the  girls, 
and  I  ordered  the  supper.  Mrs.  Lambert  will 
matronize  them ;  it'll  be  an  old  dance,  rather,  as  far  as 
the  girls  are  concerned,  but  I've  asked  two  or  three 
buds  ;  and  some  of  the  young  married  people.  It  will 
be  very  pleasant,  don't  you  think  ?  " 

"Very.  Do  you  think  Mr.  Wade  would  like  to 
come  ?  " 

Suzette  smiled.  "  I  dare  say  he  would.  I  wasn't 
thinking  of  him  in  making  it,  but  I  don't  see  why  he 
shouldn't  look  in." 

"  He  might  come  to  the  supper,"  Adeline  mused 
aloud,  "  if  it  isn't  one  of  his  church  days.  I  never  can 
keep  the  run  of  them." 

"  We  were  talking  about  that  and  we  decided  that 
Thursday  would  be  perfectly  safe.  Louise  and  I 
looked  it  up  together ;  but  we  knew  we  could  make 
everything  sure  by  asking  Mrs.  Lambert  first  of  all ; 
she  would  have  been  certain  to  object  if  we  had  made 
any  mistake." 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  59 

"  I'm  very  glad,"  said  Adeline.  "  I  know  father 
will  be  glad  to  have  Mr.  Wade  here.  He's  taken  a 
great  fancy  to  him." 

"  Mr.  Wade's  very  nice,"  said  Suzette,  coolly.  "  I 
shouldn't  have  liked  to  have  it  without  him." 

They  left  the  table  and  went  into  the  library,  to 
talk  the  dance  over  at  larger  leisure.  Suzette  was 
somewhat  sleepy  from  the  fatigues  of  her  escapade  to 
Boston,  and  an  afternoon  spent  mostly  in  the  cold  air, 
and  from  time  to  time  she  yawned,  and  said  she  must 
really  go  to  bed,  and  then  went  on  talking. 

"  Shall  you  have  any  of  the  South  Hatboro'  peo 
ple  ?  "  her  sister  asked. 

"  Mrs.  Munger  and  her  tribe  ?  "  said  Suzette,  with  a 
contemptuous  little  smile.  "  I  don't  think  she  would 
contribute  much.  Why  not  the  Morrells ;  or  the 
Putneys,  at  once  ?  "  She  added  abruptly,  "  I  think  I 
shall  ask  Jack  Wilmington."  Adeline  gave  a  start, 
and  looked  keenly  at  her ;  but  she  went  on  quite  im 
perviously.  "  The  Hilarys  know  him.  Matt  Hilary 
and  he  were  quite  friends  at  one  time.  Besides,"  she 
said,  as  if  choosing  now  to  recognize  the  quality  of 
Adeline's  gaze,  "  I  don't  care  to  have  Louise  suppose 
there's  the  shadow  of  anything  between  us  any  more, 
not  even  a  quarrel." 

Adeline  gave  a  little  sigh  of  relief.  u  I'm  glad  that's 
it.  I'm  always  afraid  you'll  gst  — " 

"  To  thinking  about  him  again?  You  needn't  be. 
All  that's  as  thoroughly  dead  and  gone  as  anything 
can  be  in  this  world.  No,"  she  continued,  in  the  tone 


60  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

that  is  more  than  half  for  one's  self  in  such  dealings, 
"  whatever  there  was  of  that,  or  might  have  been,  Mr. 
Wilmington  has  put  an  end  to,  long  ago.  It  never 
was  anything  but  a  fancy,  and  I  don't  believe  it  could 
have  been  anything  else  if  it  had  ever  come  to  the 
point." 

"I'm  glad  it  seems  so  to  you  now,  Sue,"  said  her 
sister,  "  but  you  needn't  tell  me  that  you  weren't  very 
much  taken  with  him  at  one  time  ;  and  if  it's  going  to 
begin  again,  I'd  much  rather  you  wouldn't  have  him 
here." 

Suzette  laughed  at  the  old-maidish  anxiety.  "  Do 
you  think  you  shall  see  me  at  his  feet  before  the  even 
ing  is  over  ?  But  I  should  like  to  see  him  at  mine 
for  a  moment,  and  to  have  the  chance  of  hearing  his 
explanations." 

"  I  don't  believe  he's  ever  been  bad  !  "  cried  Ade 
line.  "  He's  just  weak." 

"  Very  well.  I  should  like  to  hear  what  a  man  has 
to  say  for  his  weakness,  and  then  tell  him  that  I  had 
a  little  weakness  of  my  own,  and  didn't  think  I  had 
strength  to  endure  a  husband  that  had  to  be  explained." 

"  Ah,  you're  in  love  with  him,  yet !  You  shall 
never  have  him  here  in  the  world,  after  the  way  he's 
treated  you!  " 

"  Don't  be  silly,  Adeline  !  Don't  be  romantic !  If 
you  had  ever  been  in  love  yourself,  you  would  know 
that  people  outlive  that  as  well  as  other  things.  Let's 
see  how  the  drawing-room  will  do  for  the  dance  ?  " 

She  jumped  from  her  chair  and  touched  the  electric 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  61 

button  at  the  chimney.  "  You  think  that  nothing  but 
death  can  kill  a  fancy,  and  yet  nobody  marries  their 
first  love,  and  lots  of  women  have  second  husbands." 
The  man  showed  himself  at  the  door,  and  she  said  to 
him  in  a  rapid  aside  :  "  Turn  up  the  lights  in  the 
drawing-room,  James,"  and  returned  to  her  sister. 
"  No,  Adeline!  The  only  really  enduring  and  undying 
thing  is  a  slight.  That  lasts  —  with  me  !  " 

Adeline  was  moved  to  say,  in  the  perverse  honesty 
of  her  soul,  and  from  the  inborn  New  England  love  of 
justice,  "  I  don't  believe  he  ever  meant  it,  Sue.  I 
don't  believe  but  what  he  was  influenced  — " 

Suzette  laughed,  not  at  all  bitterly.  "  Oh,  you  re  in 
love  with  him  !  Well,  you  may  have  him  if  ever  he 
offers  himself  to  me.  Let's  look  at  the  drawing-room.-' 
She  caught  Adeline  round  her  bony  waist,  where  each 
rib  defined  itself  to  her  hand,  and  danced  her  out  of 
the  library,  across  the  hall  into  the  white  and  gold 
saloon  beyond.  "  Yes,"  she  said,  with  a  critical  look 
at  the  room,  <;  it  will  do  splendidly.  We  shall  have  to 
put  down  linen,  of  course ;  but  then  the  dancing  will 
be  superb  —  as  good  as  a  bare  floor.  Yes,  it  will  be 
a  grand  success.  Ugh !  Come  out,  come  out,  come 
out !  How  deathly  cold  it  is  !  " 

She  ran  back  into  the  warm  library,  and  her  sister 
followed  more  slowly.  "  You  shouldn't  think,"  she 
said,  as  if  something  in  Sue's  words  had  reminded  her 
of  it,  "  that  coming  so  soon  after  Mrs.  Newton's  little 
boy  — " 

"  Well,  that's  like  you,  Adeline  !    To  bring  that  up  ! 


62  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

No,  indeed  !  It'll  be  a  whole  week,  nearly  ;  and  be 
sides  he  isn't  quite  one  of  the  family.  What  an  idea !  " 

"  Of  course,"  her  sister  assented,  abashed  by  Sue's 
scornful  surprise. 

"  It's  too  bad  it  should  have  happened  just  at  this 
time,"  said  the  girl,  with  some  relenting.  "When  is 
it  to  be  ?  " 

"To-morrow,  at  eleven,"  said  Adeline.  She  per 
ceived  that  Sue's  selfishness  was  more  a  selfishness  of 
words,  perhaps,  than  of  thoughts  or  feelings.  "  You 
needn't  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  I  can  tell  them 
you  were  not  very  well,  and  didn't  feel  exactly  like 
coming.  They  will  understand."  She  was  used  to 
making  excuses  for  Suzette,  and  a  motherly  fib  like 
this  seemed  no  harm  to  her. 


X. 

In  the  morning  before  her  sister  was  astir,  Adeline 
went  out  to  the  coachman's  quarters  in  the  stabling, 
and  met  the  mother  of  the  dead  child  at  the  door. 
"  Come  right  in  !  "  she  said,  fiercely,  as  she  set  it  wide. 
"  I  presume  you  want  to  know  if  there's  anything  you 
can  do  for  me  ;  that's  what  they  all  ask.  Well,  there 
ain't,  unless  you  can  bring  him  back  to  life.  I've  been 
up  and  doin',  as  usual,  this  mornin',"  she  said,  and  a 
sound  of  frying  came  from  the  kitchen  where  she  had 
left  her  work  to  let  her  visitor  in.  "  We  got  to  eat ; 
we  got  to  live." 

The  farmer's  wife  came  in  from  the  next  chamber, 
where  the  little  one  lay  ;  she  had  her  bonnet  and 
shawl  on  as  if  going  home  after  a  night's  watching. 
She  said,  "  I  tell  her  he's  better  off  where  he's  gone ; 
but  she  can't  seem  to  sense  the  comfort  of  it." 

"  How  do  you  know  he's  better  off  ?  "  demanded  the 
mother,  turning  upon  her.  "  It  makes  me  tired  to  hear 
such  stuff.  Who's  goin'  to  take  more  care  of  the  child 
where  he's  gone,  than  what  his  mother  could  ?  Don't 
you  talk  nonsense,  Mrs.  Saunders !  You  don't  know 
anything  about  it,  and  nobody  does.  I  can  bear  it ; 
yes,  I've  got  the  stren'th  to  stand  up  against  death, 
but  I  don't  want  any  comfort.  You  want  to  see  El- 


G4  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

bridge,  Miss  Northwick  ?  He's  in  the  harness  room, 
I  guess.  He's  got  to  keep  about,  too,  if  he  don't  want 
to  go  clear  crazy.  One  thing,  he  don't  have  to  stand 
any  comfortin'.  I  guess  men  don't  say  such  things 
to  each  other  as  women  do,  big  fools  as  they  be  !  " 

Mrs.  Saunders  gave  Miss  Northwick  a  wink  of  pity 
for  Mrs.  Newton  and  expressed  that  she  was  hardly 
accountable  for  what  she  was  saying. 

"  He  used  to  complain  of  me  for  lettin'  Arty  get  out 
into  the  stable  among  the  horses  ;  but  I  guess  he  won't 
be  troubled  that  way  much  more,"  said  the  mother; 
and  then  something  in  Miss  Northwick's  face  seemed 
to  stay  her  in  her  wild  talk ;  and  she  asked,  "  Want  I 
should  call  him  for  you  ?  " 

"  No,  no,"  said  Adeline,  "  I'll  go  right  through  to 
him,  myself."      She  knew  the  way  from  the  coach 
man's  dwelling  into  the  stable,  and  she  found  Elbridge 
oiling  one  of  the  harnesses,  with  a  sort  of  dogged  atten 
tion  to  the  work,  which  he  hardly  turned  from  to  look 
at  her.     "  Elbridge,"  she  asked,  "  did  you  drive  father 
to  the  depot  yesterday  morning?  " 
"Yes,  ma'am,  I  did." 
"  When  did  he  say  he  would  be  back  ?  " 
"Well,  he  said  he  couldn't  say,  exactly.     But  I 
understood  in  a  day  or  two." 

"  Did  he  expect  to  be  anywhere  but  Ponkwasset  ?  " 

"No,  ma'am,  I  didn't  hear  him  say  as  he  did." 

"  Then  it's  a  mistake ;  and  of  course  I  knew  it  was 

a  mistake.     There's  more  than  one  Northwick  in  the 

world,  I  presume."      She  laughed  a  little  hysterically  ; 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY.  65 

she  had  a  newspaper  in  her  hand,  and  it  shook  with 
the  nervous  tremor  that  passed  over  her. 

"  Why,  what  is  it,  Miss  Northwick?  "  said  Elbridge 
with  a  perception  of  the  trouble  in  her  voice  through 
the  trouble  in  his  own  heart.  He  stopped  pulling  the 
greasy  sponge  over  the  trace  in  his  hand,  and  turned 
towards  her. 

"  Oh,  nothing.  There's  been  an  accident  on  the 
Union  and  Dominion  Railroad ;  and  of  course  it's  a 
mistake." 

She  handed  him  the  paper,  folded  to  the  column 
which  she  wished  to  show,  and  he  took  it  between  two 
finger-tips,  so  as  to  soil  it  as  little  as  possible,  and  stood 
reading  it.  She  went  on  saying,  "  He  wouldn't  be  on 
the  train  if  he  was  at  Ponkwasset.  I  got  the  paper 
when  I  first  came  down  stairs,  but  I  didn't  happen  to 
read  the  account  till  just  now ;  and  then  I  thought  I'd 
run  out  and  see  what  father  said  to  you  about  where 
he  was  going.  He  told  us  he  was  going  to  the  Mills, 
too,  and  — "  Her  voice  growing  more  and  more 
wistful,  died  away  in  the  fascination  of  watching  the 
fascination  of  Elbridge  as  he  first  took  in  the  half- 
column  of  scare-heads,  and  then  followed  down  to  the 
meagre  details  of  the  dispatch  eked  out  with  double- 
leading  to  cover  space. 

It  appeared  that  the  Northern  express  had  reached 
Wellwater  Junction,  on  the  Union  and  Dominion  line, 
several  hours  behind  time,  and  after  the  usual  stop 
there  for  supper,  had  joined  the  Boston  train,  on  the 
United  States  and  Canada,  for  Montreal,  and  had,  just 


66  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

after  leaving  the  Junction,  run  off  the  track.  "  The 
deadly  car  stove  got  in  its  work  "  on  the  wreck,  and 
many  lives  had  been  lost  by  the  fire,  especially  in  the 
parlor  car.  It  was  impossible  to  give  a  complete  list 
of  the  killed  and  wounded,  but  several  bodies  were 
identified,  and  among  the  names  of  passengers  in  the 
Pullman  that  of  T.  W.  Northwick  was  reported,  from 
a  telegram  received  by  the  conductor  at  Wellwater 
asking  to  have  a  seat  reserved  from  that  point  to 
Montreal. 

"  It  ain't  him,  I  know  it  ain't,  Miss  Northwick,"  said 
Elbridge.  He  offered  to  give  her  the  paper,  but 
took  another  look  at  it  before  he  finally  yielded  it. 
"  There's  lots  of  folks  of  the  same  name,  I  don't  care 
what  it  is,  and  the  initials  ain't  the  ones." 

"  No,"  she  said,  doubtfully,  "  but  I  didn't  like  the 
last  name  being  the  same." 

"  Well,  you  can't  help  that ;  and  as  long  as  it  ain't 
the  initials,  and  you  know  your  father  is  safe  and 
sound  at  the  Mills,  you  don't  want  to  worry." 

"No,"  said  Adeline.  "You're  sure  he  told  you  he 
was  going  to  the  Mills  ?  " 

"Why,  didn't  he  tell  you  he  was  ?  I  don't  recollect 
just  what  he  said.  But  he  told  me  about  that  note  he 
left  for  me,  and  that  had  the  money  in  it  for  the 
fun'al  — "  Elbridge  stopped  for  a  moment  before 
he  added,  "  He  said  he'd  telegraph  just  which  train  he 
wanted  me  to  meet  him  when  he  was  comin'  back.  .  .  . 
Why,  dumn  it !  I  guess  I  must  be  crazy.  We  can 
settle  it  in  half  an  hour's  time  —  or  an  hour  or  two  at 


THE    QUALITY    OP    MERCY.  67 

the  outside  —  and  no  need  to  worry  about  it.  Tele 
graph  to  the  Mills  and  find  out  whether  he's  there  or 
not." 

He  dropped  his  harness,  and  went  to  the  tele 
phone  and  called  up  the  Western  Union  operator  at 
the  station.  He  had  the  usual  telephonic  contention 
with  her  as  to  who  he  was,  and  what  he  wanted,  but 
he  got  her  at  last  to  take  his  dispatch  to  Ponkwasset 
Falls,  asking  whether  Northwick  was  at  the  Mills. 

"  There !  "  he  said,  "  I  don't  believe  but  what 
that'll  fix  it  all  right.  And  I'll  bring  you  in  the  an 
swer  myself,  when  it  comes,  Miss  Northwick." 

"  I  do  hate  to  trouble  you  with  my  foolishness, 
when  —  " 

"  I  guess  you  needn't  mind  about  that,"  said  Elbridge. 
'•  I  guess  it  wouldn't  make  much  difference  to  me,  if 
the  whole  world  was  burnt  up.  Be  a  kind  of  a  relief." 
He  did  not  mean  just  the  sense  the  words  conveyed, 
and  she,  in  her  preoccupation  with  her  own  anxiety, 
and  her  pity  for  him,  interpreted  them  aright. 

She  stayed  to  add,  "I  don't  know  what  he  could 
have  been  on  that  train  for,  any  way,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No,  and  he  wa'n't  on  it ;  you'll  find  that  out." 

"  It'll  be  very  provoking,"  she  said,  forecasting  the 
minor  trouble  of  the  greater  trouble's  failure.  "  Every 
body  will  wonder  if  it  isn't  father,  and  we  shall  have 
to  tell  them  it  isn't." 

"  Well,  that  won't  be  so  bad  as  havin'  to  tell  'em  it 
is,"  said  Elbridge,  getting  back  for  the  moment  to  his 
native  dryness. 


68  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  That's  true,"  Adeline  admitted.  "  Don't  speak  to 
anybody  about  it  till  you  hear."  She  knew  from  his 
making  no  answer  that  he  would  obey  her,  and  she 
hid  the  paper  in  her  pocket,  as  if  she  would  hide  the 
intelligence  it  bore  from  all  the  rest  of  the  world. 

She  let  Suzette  sleep  late,  after  the  fatigues  of  her 
day  in  Boston  and  the  excitement  of  their  talk  at 
night,  -which  she  suspected  had  prevented  the  girl 
from  sleeping  early.  Elbridge's  sympathetic  incre 
dulity  had  comforted  her,  if  it  had  not  convinced  her, 
and  she  possessed  herself  in  such  patience  as  she  could 
till  the  answer  should  come  from  the  mills.  If  her 
father  were  there,  then  it  would  be  all  right ;  and  in 
the  meantime  she  found  some  excuses  for  not  believ 
ing  the  worst  she  feared.  There  was  no  reason  in  the 
world  why  he  should  be  on  that  train ;  there  was  no 
reason  why  she  should  identify  him  with  that  T.  W. 
Northwick  in  the  burnt-up  car  ;  that  was  not  his  name, 
and  that  was  not  the  place  where  he  would  have  been. 


XL 

THERE  was  trouble  with  the  telegraph  and  tele 
phone  connections  between  Hatboro'  and  Ponkwasset, 
and  Adeline  had  to  go  to  the  funeral  without  an  answer 
to  Elbridge's  message.  Below  her  surface  interest  in 
the  ceremony  and  the  behavior  of  the  mourners  and 
the  friends,  which  nothing  could  have  alienated  but  the 
actual  presence  of  calamity,  she  had  a  nether  misery 
of  alternating  hope  and  fear,  of  anxieties  continually 
reasoned  down,  and  of  security  lost  the  instant  it  was 
found.  The  double  strain  told  so  upon  her  nerves, 
that  when  the  rites  at  the  grave  were  ended,  she  sent 
word  to  the  clergyman  and  piteously  begged  him  to 
drive  home  with  her. 

"  Why,  aren't  you  well,  Miss  Northwick  ?  "  he  asked, 
with  a  glance  at  her  troubled  face,  as  he  got  into  the 
covered  sleigh  with  her. 

11  Oh,  yes,"  she  said,  and  she  flung  herself  back 
against  the  cushioning  and  began  to  cry. 

"  Poor  Mrs.  Newton's  grief  has  been  very  trying," 
he  said,  gently,  and  with  a  certain  serenity  of  smile  he 
had,  and  he  added,  as  if  he  thought  it  well  to  lure  Miss 
Northwick  from  the  minor  affliction  that  we  feel  for 
others'  sorrows  to  the  sorrow  itself,  "It  has  been  a 
terrible  blow  to  her  —  so  sudden,  and  her  only  child." 


70  THE    QUALITY   OF    MERCY. 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  that,"  said  Adeline,  frankly.  "  Have 
—  have  you  seen  the  —  paper  this  morning  ?  " 

"It  came,"  said  the  clergyman.  "But  in  view  of 
the  duty  before  me,  I  thought  I  wouldn't  read  it.  Is 
there  anything  particular  in  it  ?  " 

"No,  nothing.  Only  —  only — "  Adeline  had 
not  been  able  to  separate  herself  from  the  dreadful 
thing,  and  she  took  it  out  of  the  carriage  pocket. 
"There  has  been  an  accident  on  the  railroad,"  she 
began  firmly,  but  she  broke  down  in  the  effort  to  go 
on.  "And  I  wanted  to  have  you  see  —  see  —  " 
She  stopped,  and  handed  him  the  paper. 

He  took  it  and  ran  over  the  account  of  the  accident, 
and  came  at  her  trouble  with  an  instant  intelligence 
that  was  in  itself  a  sort  of  reassurance.  "  But  had  you 
any  reason  to  suppose  your  father  was  on  the  train  ?  " 

"No,"  she  said  from  the  strength  he  gave  her. 
"  That  is  the  strange  part  about  it.  He  went  up  to 
the  Mills,  yesterday  morning,  and  he  couldn't  have 
been  on  the  train  at  all.  Only  the  name —  " 

"It  isn't  quite  the  name,"  said  Wade,  with  a  gentle 
moderation,  as  if  he  would  not  willingly  make  too 
much  of  the  difference,  and  felt  truth  to  be  too  sacred 
to  be  tampered  with  even  while  it  had  merely  the  form 
of  possibility. 

"No,"  said  Adeline,  eager  to  be  comforted,  "and 
I'm  sure  he's  at  the  Mills.  Elbridge  has  sent  a  dis 
patch  to  find  out  if  he's  there,  but  there  must  be  some 
thing  the  matter  with  the  telegraph.  We  hadn't 
heard  before  the  funeral ;  or,  at  least,  he  didn't  bring 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MEKCY.  71 

me  word;  and  I  hated  to  keep  round  after  him 
when  —  " 

"  He  probably  hadn't  heard,"  said  the  clergyman, 
soothingly,  "and  no  news  is  good  news,  you  know. 
But  hadn't  we  better  drive  round  by  the  station,  and 
find  out  whether  any  answer  has  been  —  " 

"O,  no!  I  couldn't  do  that!"  said  Adeline,  ner 
vously.  "  They  will  telephone  the  answer  up  to 
Elbridge.  But  come  home  with  me,  if  you  haven't 
something  to  do,  and  stay  with  us  till  we  —  " 

"  Oh,  very  willingly."  On  the  way  the  young  cler 
gyman  talked  of  the  accident,  guessing  that  her  hyster 
ical  conjectures  had  heightened  the  horror,  and  that 
he  should  make  it  less  dreadful  by  exploring  its  facts 
with  her.  He  did  not  declare  it  impossible  her  father 
should  have  been  on  the  train,  but  he  urged  the  ex 
treme  improbability. 

Elbridge  and  his  wife  passed  them,  driving  rapidly 
in  Simpson's  booby,  which  Adeline  had  ordered  for 
their  use  at  the  funeral ;  and  when  she  got  into  the 
house  Elbridge  was  waiting  there  for  her.  He  began 
at  once ;  "  Miss  Northwick,  I  don't  believe  but  what 
your  father's  staid  over  at  Springfield  for  something. 
He  was  talkiri'  to  me  last  week  about  some  hosses 
there — •" 

"  Isn't  he  at  the  Mills  ?  "  she  demanded  sharply. 

Elbridge  gave  his  hat  a  turn  on  his  hand,  before  he 
looked  up.  "  Well,  no,  he  hain't  been,  yet  —  " 

Adeline  made  no  sound,  but  she  sank  down  as  a 
column  of  water  sinks. 


72  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

At  the  confusion  of  movements  and  voices  that  fol 
lowed,  Suzette  came  to  the  door  of  the  library,  and 
looked  wonderingly  into  the  hall,  where  this  had  hap 
pened,  with  a  book  clasped  over  her  finger.  "  What 
in  the  world  is  the  matter  ?  "  she  asked  with  a  sort  of 
sarcastic  amaze,  at  sight  of  Elbridge  lifting  something 
from  the  floor. 

"  Don't  be  alarmed,  Miss  Suzette,"  said  Mr.  Wade, 
"Your  sister  seems  a  little  faint,  and  —  " 

"  It's  this  sickening  heat !  "  cried  the  girl,  running 
to  the  door,  and  setting  it  wide.  "  It  suffocates  me 
when  I  come  in  from  the  outside.  I'll  get  some 
water."  She  vanished  and  was  back  again  instantly, 
stooping  over  Adeline  to  wet  her  forehead  and  temples. 
The  rush  of  the  cold  air  began  to  revive  her.  She 
opened  her  eyes,  and  Suzette  said,  severely,  "  What 
has  come  over  you,  Adeline  ?  Aren't  you  well  ?  ':  and 
as  Adeline  answered  nothing,  she  went  on  :  "I  don't 
believe  she  knows  where  she  is.  Let  us  get  her  into 
the  library  on  the  lounge." 

She  put  her  strength  with  that  of  the  young  clergy 
man,  and  they  carried  Adeline  to  the  lounge  ;  Suzette 
dispatched  Elbridge,  hanging  helplessly  about,  for 
some  of  the  women.  He  sent  the  parlor-maid,  and 
did  not  come  back. ' 

Adeline  kept  looking  at  her  sister  as  if  she  were 
afraid  of  her.  When  she  was  recovered  sufficiently  to 
speak,  she  turned  her  eyes  on  the  clergyman,  and  said 
huskily,  «  Tell  her." 

"  Your  sister  has  had  a  little  fright,"  he  began  ;  and 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  73 

with  his  gentle  eyes  on  the  girl's  he  went  on  to  deal 
the  pain  that  priests  and  physicians  must  give. 
"  There's  the  report  of  a  railroad  accident  in  the  morn 
ing  paper,  and  among  the  passengers  —  the  missing 
—  was  one  of  the  name  of  North  wick —  " 

"  But  father  is  at  the  Mills  !  " 

"  Your  sister  had  telegraphed  before  the  funeral,  to 
make  sure — and  word  has  come  that  he  —  isn't 
there." 

"Where  is  the  paper?"  demanded  Suzette,  with  a 
kind  of  haughty  incredulity. 

Wade  found  it  in  his  pocket,  where  he  must  have 
put  it  instead  of  giving  it  back  to  Adeline  in  the 
sleigh.  Suzette  took  it  and  went  with  it  to  one  of  the 

C5 

windows.  She  stood  reading  the  account  of  the  acci 
dent,  while  her  sister  watched  her  with  tremulous 
eagerness  for  the  help  that  came  from  her  contemptu 
ous  rejection  of  the  calamity. 

"  How  absurd !  It  isn't  father's  name,  and  he 
couldn't  have  been  on  the  train.  What  in  the  world 
would  he  have  been  going  to  Montreal  for,  at  this 
time  of  year  ?  It's  ridiculous  !  "  Suzette  flung  the 
paper  down,  and  came  back  to  the  other  two. 

"  I  felt,"  said  Wade,  "  that  it  was  extremely  im 
probable  —  " 

"  But  where,'"'  Adeline  put  in  faintly,  "  could  he 
have  been  if  he  wasn't  at  the  Mills  ?  " 

"  Anywhere  in  the  world  except  Well  water  Junc 
tion,"  returned  Suzette,  scornfully.  "He  may  have 
stopped  over  at  Springfield,  or  —  " 


74  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Yes,"  Adeline  admitted,  "  that's  what  Elbridge 
thought." 

"  Or  he  may  have  gone  on  to  Willoughby  Junction. 
He  often  goes  there." 

"  That  is  true,"  said  the  other,  suffering  herself  to 
take  heart  a  little.  "  And  he's  been  talking  of  sell 
ing  his  interest  in  the  quarries  there  ;  and —  " 

"  He's  there,  of  course,"  said  Suzette  with  finality. 
"  If  he'd  been  going  farther,  he'd  have  telegraphed  us. 
He's  always  very  careful.  I'm  not  in  the  least 
alarmed,  and  I  advise  you  not  to  be,  Adeline.  When 
did  you  see  the  paper  first  ?  " 

"  When  I  came  down  to  breakfast,"  said  Adeline, 
quietly. 

"And  I  suppose  you  didn't  eat  any  breakfast? " 

Adeline's  silence  made  confession. 

"What I  think  is,  we'd  better  all  have  lunch,"  said 
Suzette,  and  she  went  and  touched  the  bell  at  the 
chimney.  "  You'll  stay  with  us,  won't  you,  Mr. 
Wade  ?  We  want  lunch  at  once,  James,"  she  said  to 
the  man  who  answered  her  ring.  "  Of  course,  you 
must  stay,  Mr.  Wade,  and  help  see  Adeline  back  to 
her  right  mind."  She  touched  the  bell  again,  and 
when  the  man  appeared,  "My  sleigh  at  once,  James," 
she  commanded.  "  I  will  drive  you  home,  Mr.  Wade, 
on  my  way  to  the  station.  Of  course  I  shall  not  leave 
anything  in  doubt  about  this  silly  scare.  I  fancy  it 
will  be  no  great  difficulty  to  find  out  where  father  is. 
Where  is  that  railroad  guide  ?  Probably  my  father 
took  it  up  to  his  room."  She  ran  up-stairs  and  came 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  75 

down  with  the  book  in  her  hand.  "  Now  we  will 
see.  I  don't  believe  he  could  get  any  train  at  Spring 
field,  where  he  would  have  to  change  for  the  Mills, 
that  would  take  him  beyond  the  Junction  at  that  hour 
last  night.  The  express  has  to  come  up  from  Bos 
ton  —  "  She  stopped  and  ran  over  the  time-table  of  the 
route.  "  Well,  he  could  get  a  connecting  train  at  the 
Junction  ;  but  that  doesn't  prove  at  all  that  he  did." 

She  talked  on,  mocking  the  mere  suggestion  of  such 
a  notion,  and  then  suddenly  rang  the  bell  once  more, 
to  ask  sharply,  "  Isn't  lunch  ready  yet  ?  Then  bring 
us  tea,  here.  I  shall  telegraph  to  the  Mills  again,  and 
I  shall  telegraph  to  Mr.  Hilary  in  Boston ;  he  will 
know  whether  father  was  going  anywhere  else.  They 
had  a  meeting  of  the  Board  day  before  yesterday,  and 
father  went  to  the  Mills  unexpectedly.  I  shall  tele 
graph  to  Ponkwasset  Junction,  too ;  and  you  may  be 
sure  I  shall  not  come  home,  Adeline,  till  I  know  some 
thing  definite." 

The  tea  came,  and  Suzette  served  the  cups  herself, 
with  nerves  that  betrayed  no  tremor  in  the  clash  of 
silver  or  china.  But  she  made  haste,  and  at  the  sound 
of  sleigh-bells  without,  she  put  down  her  own  cup, 
untasted. 

"  Oh,  must  you  take  Mr.  Wade  away  ?  "  Adeline 
feebly  pleaded.  "  Stay  till  she  comes  back ! "  she 
entreated. 

Suzette  faltered  a  moment,  and  then  with  a  look  at 
Mr.  Wade,  she  gave  a  harsh  laugh.  "  Very  well !  " 
she  said. 


76  THE    QUALITY   OP   MERCY. 

She  ran  into  the  hall  and  up  the  stairs,  and  in  an 
other  moment  they  heard  her  coming  down  again; 
the  outer  door  shut  after  her,  and  then  came  the  flut 
ter  of  the  sleigh-bells  as  she  drove  away. 

Over  the  lunch  the  elder  sister  recovered  herself  a 
little,  and  ate  as  one  can  in  the  suspense  of  a  strong 
emotion. 

"  Your  sister  is  a  person  of  great  courage,"  said  the 
clergyman,  as  if  he  were  a  little  abashed  by  it. 

"  She  would  never  show  that  she's  troubled.  But  I 
know  well  enough  that  she's  troubled,  by  the  way  she 
kept  talking  and  doing  something  every  minute  ;  and 
now,  if  she  hadn't  gone  to  telegraph,  she'd  —  I  mustn't 
keep  you  here,  any  longer,  Mr.  Wade,"  she  broke  off 
in  the  sense  of  physical  strength  the  food  had  given 
her.  "  Indeed,  I  mustn't.  You  needn't  be  anxious. 
I  shall  do  very  well,  now.  Yes  !  I  shall !  " 

She  begged  him  to  leave  her,  but  he  perceived  that 
she  did  not  really  wish  him  to  go,  and  it  was  nearly  an 
hour  after  Suzette  drove  away,  before  he  got  out  of 
the  house.  He  would  not  let  her  send  him  home ; 
and  he  walked  toward  the  village  in  the  still,  sunny 
cold  of  the  early  winter  afternoon,  thinking  of  the 
sort  of  contempt  with  which  that  girl  had  spurned  the 
notion  of  calamity,  as  if  it  were  something  to  be  re 
sented,  and  even  snubbed,  in  its  approach  to  her.  It 
was  as  if  she  had  now  gone  to  trace  it  to  its  source, 
and  defy  it  there ;  to  stamp  upon  the  presumptuous 
rumor  and  destroy  it. 

Just  before  he  reached  the  crest  of  the  upland  that 


THE    QUALITY   OF    MERCY.  77 

shut  out  the  village  from  him,  he  heard  the  clash  of 
sleigh-bells  ;  a  pair  of  horses  leaped  into  sight,  and 
came  bearing  down  upon  him  with  that  fine  throw  of 
their  feet,  which  you  get  only  in  such  a  direct  en 
counter.  He  stepped  into  the  side  track,  and  then  he 
heard  Miss  Sue  Northwick  call  to  her  horses  arid  saw 
her  pulling  them  up.  She  had  her  father's  fondness 
for  horses,  and  the  pair  of  little  grays  were  a  gift  from 
him  with  the  picturesque  sledge  they  drew.  The 
dasher  swelled  forward  like  a  swan's  breast,  and  then 
curved  deeply  backward  ;  from  either  corner  of  the 
band  of  iron  filagree  at  the  top,  dangled  a  red  horse 
tail.  The  man  who  had  driven  her  to  the  station  sat 
in  a  rumble  behind;  on  the  seat  with  Suzette  was 
another  young  lady,  who  put  out  her  hand  to  Wade 
with  a  look  of  uncommon  liking,  across  the  shining 
bearskin  robe,  and  laughed  at  his  astonishment  in  see 
ing  her.  While  they  talked,  the  clipped  grays  ner 
vously  lifted  and  set  down  their  forefeet  in  the  snow, 
as  if  fingering  it;  they  inhaled  the  cold  air  with 
squared  nostrils,  and  blew  it  out  in  blasts  of  white 
steam.  Suzette  said,  in.  (explanation  of  her  friend's 
presence :  "  Louise  had  seen  the  account,  and  she 
made  her  brother  bring  her  up.  They  think  just  as 
I  do,  that  there's  nothing  of  it ;  one  of  the  papers  had 
the  name  Nordeck ;  but  we've  left  Mr.  Hilary  at  the 
station,  fighting  the  telegraph  and  telephone  in  all 
directions,  and  he  isn't  to  stop  till  he  gets  something 
positive.  He's  trying  Well  water  now."  She  said  all 
this  very  haughtily,  but  she  added,  "  The  only  thing 


78  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

is,  I  can't  understand  why  my  father  hasn't  been  heard 
of  at  the  Mills.  Some  one  was  asking  for  him  there 
yesterday." 

"  Probably  he  went  on  to  Willoughby  Junction,  as 
you  suggested." 

"Of  course  he  did,"  said  Louise.  "We  haven't 
heard  from  there  yet." 

"  Oh,  I'm  not  in  the  least  troubled,"  said  Sue,  "  but 
it's  certainly  very  provoking."  She  lifted  her  reins. 
"  I'm  hurrying  home  to  let  Adeline  know." 

"  She'll  be  very  glad,"  Wade  returned,  as  if  it  were 
the  certainty  of  good  news  she  was  carrying.  "I  think 
I'll  join  Matt  at  the  station,"  he  suggested  to  Louise. 

"  Do  !  "  she  answered.  "  You  can  certainly  manage 
something  between  you.  Matt  will  be  almost  as  glad 
of  your  coming  as  my  going.  I  thought  we  were  com 
ing  up  here  to  reassure  Sue,  but  I  seem  strangely 
superfluous." 

"  You  can  reassure  Adeline,"  said  Sue.  She  added 
to  Wade,  "  I  keep  thinking  what  an  annoyance  it  will 
be  to  my  father,  to  have  all  this  fuss  made  over  him. 
I  sometimes  feel  vexed  with  Adeline.  Good-bye !  " 
she  called  back  to  him  as  she  drove  away,  and  she 
stopped  again  to  add,  "  Won't  you  come  up  with  Mr. 
Hilary  when  you've  heard  something  definite  ?  " 

Wade  promised,  and  they  repeated  their  good-byes 
all  round  with  a  resolute  cheerfulness. 


XII. 

THE  affair  had  been  mixed  up  with  tea  and  lunch, 
and  there  was  now  the  suggestion  of  a  gay  return  to 
the  Northwick  place  and  an  hour  or  two  more  in  that 
pleasant  company  of  pretty  and  lively  women,  which 
Wade  loved  almost  as  well  as  he  loved  righteousness. 
He  knew  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  death  in  the 
world ;  he  had  often  already  seen  its  strange,  peaceful 
face  ;  he  had  just  stood  by  an  open  grave ;  but  at 
the  moment,  his  youth  denied  it  all>  and  he  swung 
along  over  the  hard-packed  roadway  thinking  of  the 
superb  beauty  of  Suzette  Northwick,  and  the  witchery 
of  Louise  Hilary's  face.  It  was  like  her,  to  come  at 
once  to  her  friend  in  this  anxiety ;  and  he  believed  a 
strength  in  her  to  help  bear  the  worst,  the  worst  that 
now  seemed  so  remote  and  impossible. 

He  did  not  find  Matt  Hilary  in  the  station  ;  but  he 
pushed  through  to  the  platform  outside  and  saw 
him  at  a  little  distance  standing  between  two  of  the 
tracks,  and  watching  a  group  of  men  there  who  were 
replacing  some  wornout  rails  with  new  ones. 

"  Matt !  "  he  called  to  him,  and  Matt  turned  about 
and  said,  "  Hello,  Caryl !  "  and  yielded  him  a  sort  of 
absent-minded  hand,  while  he  kept  his  face  turned 
smilingly  upon  the  men.  Some  were  holding  the 


80  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

rails  in  position,  and  another  was  driving  in  the  spike 
that  was  to  rivet  the  plate  to  the  sleeper.  He  struck 
it  with  exquisite  accuracy  from  a  wide,  free-handed 
rhythmical  swing  of  his  hammer. 

"  Beautiful !  Isn't  it  ?  "  said  Matt.  "  I  never  see 
any  sort  of  manual  labor,  even  the  kinds  that  are  bru- 
tified  and  demoralized  by  their  association  with  ma 
chinery,  without  thinking  how  far  the  arts  still  come 
short  of  the  trades.  If  any  sculptor  could  feel  it, 
what  a  magnificent  bas-relief  just  that  thing  would 
make  !  "  He  turned  round  to  look  at  the  men  again  : 
in  their  different  poses  of  self-forgetfulness  and  inter 
est  in  their  work,'  they  had  a  beauty  and  grace,  in 
spite  of  their  clumsy  dress,  which  ennobled  the  scene. 

When  Matt  once  more  faced  round,  he  smiled  se 
renely  on  his  friend.  Wade,  who  knew  his  temperament 
and  his  philosophy,  was  deceived  for  the  moment. 
"  Then  you  don't  share  Miss  North  wick's  anxiety  about 
her  father,"  he  began,  as  if  Matt  had  been  dealing 
directly  with  that  matter,  and  had  been  giving  his 
reasons  for  not  being  troubled  about  it.  "  Have  you 
heard  any  thing  yet?  But  of  course  you  haven't, 
or  —  " 

Matt  halted  him,  and  looked  down  into  his  face 
from  his  greater  height  with  a  sort  of  sobered  cheer 
fulness.  "  How  much  do  you  know  about  Miss 
Northwick's  father  ?  " 

"Very  little  —  nothing  in  fact  but  what  she  and 
her  sister  showed  me  in  the  morning  paper.  I  know 
they're  in  great  distress  about  him ;  I  just  met  Miss 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  81 

Suzette  and  your  sister,  and  they  told  me  I  should  find 
you  at  the  station." 

Matt  began  to  walk  on  again.  "  I  didn't  know  but 
you  had  heard  some  talk  from  the  outside.  I  came 
off  to  escape  the  pressure  of  inquiry  at  the  station; 
people  had  found  out  somehow  that  I  had  been  put  in 
charge  of  the  telegraphing  when  the  young  ladies  left. 
I  imagined  they  wouldn't  follow  me  if  I  went  for  a 
walk."  He  put  his  hand  through  Wade's  arm,  and 
directed  their  course  across  the  tracks  toward  the 
street  away  from  the  station,  where  Elbridge  had 
walked  his  horses  up  and  down  the  evening  he  met 
Northwick.  "  I  told  them  to  look  out  for  me,  if  they 
got  anything ;  I  should  keep  in  sight  somewhere. 
Isn't  it  a  curious  commentary  on  our  state  of  things," 
he  went  on,  "that  when  any  man  in  a  position  of 
trust  can't  be  accounted  for  twenty-four  hours  after 
he  leaves  home,  the  business-like  supposition  is  that 
he  has  run  away  with  money  that  doesn't  belong  to 
him?" 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Matt  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  the  popular  belief  in  Hatboro'  seems 
to  be  that  Northwick  was  on  his  way  to  Canada  on  the 
train  that  was  wrecked." 

"  Shocking,  shocking  !  "  said  Wade.  "  What  makes 
you  think  they  believe  that?" 

"  The  conjecture  and  speculation  began  in  the  sta 
tion  the  moment  Miss  Northwick  left  it,  and  before 
it  could  be  generally  understood  that  I  was  there  to 
represent  her.  I  suppose  there  wasn't  a  man  among 


82  THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY. 

them  that  wouldn't  have  trusted  Northwick  with  all 
he  had,  or  wouldn't  have  felt  that  his  fortune  was  made 
if  Northwick  had  taken  charge  of  his  money-  In  fact 
I  heard  some  of  them  saying  so  before  their  deference 
for  me  shut  their  mouths.  Yet  I  haven't  a  doubt 
they  all  think  he's  an  absconding  defaulter," 

"  It's  shocking,"  said  Wade,  sadly,  "  but  I'm  afraid 
you're  right.  These  things  are  so  common  that  peo 
ple  are  subjected  to  suspicion  on  no  kind  of  —  "  But 
just  at  this  juncture  Matt  lifted  his  head  from  the 
moment's  revery  in  which  he  seemed  to  have  been  far 
absent. 

"  Have  you  seen  much  of  the  family  this  winter  ?  " 

"Yes,  a  good  deal,"  said  Wade.  "They're  not 
communicants,  but  they've  been  regular  attendants  at 
the  services,  and  I've  been  a  good  deal  at  their  house. 
They  seem  rather  lonely  ;  they  have  very  little  to  do 
with  the  South  Hatboro'  people,  and  nothing  at  all 
with  the  villagers.  I  don't  know  why  they've  spent 
the  winter  here.  Of  course  one  hears  all  kinds  of 
gossip.  The  gossips  at  South  Hatboro'  say  that  Miss 
Suzette  was  willing  to  be  on  with  young  Wilmington 
again,  and  that  she  kept  the  family  here.  But  I  place 
no  faith  in  such  a  conjecture." 

"  It  has  a  rustic  crudity,"  said  Matt.  "  But  if  Jack 
Wilmington  ever  cared  anything  for  the  girl,  now's 
his  chance  to  be  a  man  and  stand  by  her." 

Something  in  Matt's  tone  made  Wade  stop  and  ask, 
"  What  do  you  mean,  Matt  ?  Is  there  anything  be 
sides  —  " 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  83 

"  Yes."  Matt  took  a  fresh  grip  of  his  friend's  arm, 
and  walked  him  steadily  forward,  and  kept  him  walking 
in  spite  of  his  involuntary  tendency  to  come  to  a  halt 
every  few  steps,  and  try  to  urge  something  that  he 
never  quite  got  from  his  tongue,  against  the  proba 
bility  of  what  Matt  was  saying.  "  I  mean  that  these 
people  are  right  in  their  suspicions." 

"Right?" 

"My  dear  Caryl,  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that 
Northwick  is  a  defaulter  to  the  company  in  a  very 
large  amount.  It  came  out  at  a  meeting  of  the  direc 
tors  on  Monday.  He  confessed  it,  for  he  could  not 
deny  it  in  the  face  of  the  proof  against  him,  and  he 
was  given  a  number  of  days  to  make  up  his  shortage. 
He  was  released  on  parole :  it  was  really  the  best 
thing,  the  wisest  as  well  as  the  mercifullest,  and  of 
course  he  broke  his  word,  and  seized  the  first  chance 
to  run  away.  I  knew  all  about  the  defalcation  from 
my  father  just  after  the  meeting.  There  is  simply  no 
question  about  it." 

u  Gracious  powers  !  "  said  Wade,  finally  helpless  to 
dispute  the  facts  which  he  still  did  not  realize.  "And 
you  think  it  possible  —  do  you  suppose  —  imagine  — 
that  it  was  really  he  who  was  in  that  burning  car? 
What  an  awful  fate  !  " 

"An  awful  fate?"  asked  Matt.  "Do  you  think 
so?  Yes,  yours  is  the  safe  ground  in  regard  to  a 
thing  of  that  kind  —  the  only  ground." 

"  The  only  ground  ?  " 

"  I  was  thinking  of   my  poor  father,"    said  Matt. 


84  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  He  said  some  sharp  things  to  that  wretched  creature 
at  the  meeting  of  the  Board  —  called  him  a  thief,  and 
I  dare  say  other  hard  names  —  and  told  him  that  the 
best  thing  that  could  happen  to  him  was  a  railroad 
accident  on  his  way  home." 

"Ah!" 

"  You  see  ?  When  he  read  the  account  of  that  ac 
cident  in  the  paper  this  morning,  and  found  a  name  so 
much  like  Northwick's  among  the  victims,  he  was 
fearfully  broken  up,  of  course.  He  felt  somehow  as 
if  he  had  caused  his  death  —  I  could  see  that,  though 
of  course  he  wouldn't  admit  anything  of  the  kind." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Wade,  compassionately. 

"  I  suppose  it  isn't  well  to  invoke  death  in  any  way. 
Pie  is  like  the  devil,  and  only  too  apt  to  come,  if  you 
ask  for  him.  I  don't  mean  anything  superstitious,  and 
I  don't  suppose  my  father  really  has  any  superstitious 
feeling  about  the  matter.  But  he's  been  rather  a 
friend  —  or  a  victim  —  of  that  damnable  theory  that 
the  gentlemanly  way  out  of  a  difficulty  like  North- 
wick's  is  suicide,  and  I  suppose  he  spoke  from  asso 
ciation  with  it,  or  by  an  impulse  from  it.  He  has  been 
telegraphing  right  and  left,  to  try  to  verify  the  reports, 
as  it  was  his  business  and  duty  to  do,  anyway ;  and 
he  caught  at  the  notion  of  my  coming  up  here  with 
Louise  to  see  if  we  could  be  of  any  use  to  those  two 
poor  women." 

"  Poor  women !  "  Wade  echoed.  "The  worst  must 
fall  upon  them,  as  the  worst  always  seems  to  do." 

"  Yes,  wherever  a  cruel  blow  falls  there  seems  to  be 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  85 

a  woman  for  it  to  fall  on.  And  you  see  what  a  re 
finement  of  cruelty  this  is  going  to  be  when  it  reaches 
them  ?  They  have  got  to  know  that  their  father  met 
that  awful  death,  and  that  he  met  it  because  he  was 
a  defaulter  and  was  running  away.  I  suppose  the 
papers  will  be  full  of  it." 

"  That  seems  intolerable.  Couldn't  anything  be 
done  to  stop  them  ?  " 

"  Why  the  thing  has  to  come  out.  You  can  keep 
happiness  a  secret,  but  sorrow  and  shame  have  to  come 
out  —  I  don't  know  why,  but  they  do.  Then,  when 
they  come  out,  we  feel  as  if  the  means  of  their  pub 
licity  were  the  cause  of  them.  It's  very  unphilosoph- 
ical."  They  walked  slowly  along  in  silence  for  a  few 
moments,  and  then  Matt's  revery  broke  out  again  in 
words :  "  Well,  it's  to  be  seen  now  whether  she  has  the 
strength  that  bears,  or  the  strength  that  breaks.  The 
way  she  held  her  head,  as  she  took  the  reins  and  drove 
off,  with  poor  Louise  beside  her  palpitating  with  sym 
pathy  for  her  trouble  and  anxiety  about  her  horses, 
was,  yes,  it  was  superb  :  there's  no  other  word  for  it. 
Ah,  poor  girl !  " 

"  Your  sister's  presence  will  be  a  great  help  to 
her,"  said  Wade.  u  It  was  very  good  of  her  to  come." 

"  Ah,  there  wasn't  anything  else  for  it,"  said  Matt, 
flinging  his  head  up.  "  Louise  has  my  father's  loyalty. 
I  don't  know  much  about  her  friendship  with  Miss 
North  wick  —  she's  so  much  younger  than  I,  and 
they  came  together  when  I  was  abroad  —  but  I've 
fancied  she  wasn't  much  liked  among  the  girls,  and 


86  THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY. 

Louise  was  her  champion,  in  a  way.  When  Louise 
read  that  report,  nothing  would  do  but  she  must  come." 

"  Of  course." 

"  But  our  being  here  must  have  its  embarrass 
ments  for  my  father.  It  was  a  sacrifice  for  him  to 
let  us  come." 

"  I  don't  understand." 

"  It  was  he  who  carried  through  the  respite  the 
directors  gave  Northwick ;  and  now  he  will  have  the 
appearance  before  some  people  of  helping  to  cover  up 
the  miserable  facts,  of  putting  a  good  face  on  things 
while  a  rogue  was  getting  away  from  justice.  He 
might  even  be  supposed  to  have  some  interest  in  get 
ting  him  out  of  the  way." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  any  such  suspicion  can  attach 
itself  to  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Hilary,"  said  Wade,  with  a 
certain  resentment  of  the  suggestion  even  from  the 
man's  son. 

"In  a  commercial  civilization  like  ours  any  sort 
of  suspicion  can  attach  to  any  sort  of  man  in  a  case 
like  this,"  said  Matt. 

Wade  took  off  his  hat  and  wiped  his  forehead.  "  I 
can't  realize  that  the  case  is  what  you  say.  I  can't 
realize  it  at  all.  It  seems  like  some  poor  sort  of  play, 
of  make-believe.  I  can't  forgive  myself  for  being  so 
little  moved  by  it.  We  are  in  the  presence  of  a  hor 
ror  that  ought  to  make  us  uncover  our  heads  and  fall 
to  our  knees  and  confess  our  own  sins  to  God  !  " 

"  Ah,  I'm  with  you  there ! "  said  Matt,  and  ho 
pushed  his  hand  farther  through  his  friend's  arm. 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  87 

They  were  both  still  well  under  thirty,  and  they 
both  had  that  zest  for  mere  experience,  any  experience, 
that  hunger  for  the  knowledge  of  life,  which  youth 
feels.  In  their  several  ways  they  were  already  men 
who  had  thought  for  themselves,  or  conjectured, 
rather ;  and  they  were  eager  to  verify  their  specula 
tions  through  their  emotions.  They  thought  a  good 
deal  alike  in  many  things,  though  they  started  from 
such  opposite  points  in  their  thinking ;  and  they  both 
had  finally  the  same  ideal  of  life.  Their  intimacy  was 
of  as  old  a  date  as  their  school  days ;  at  Harvard  they 
were  in  the  same  clubs  as  well  as  the  same  class. 
Wade's  father  was  not  a  Boston  man,  but  his  mother 
was  a  Bellingham,  and  he  was  nurtured  in  the  tradi 
tions  of  Hilary's  social  life.  Both  had  broken  with 
them :  Wade  not  so  much  when  he  became  a  ritualist 
as  Hilary  when  he  turned  his  back  on  manufacturing. 

They  were  now  not  without  a  kind  of  pride  in  stand 
ing  so  close  to  the  calamit}^  they  were  fated  witnesses  of, 
and  in  the  midst  of  their  sympathy  they  had  a  curios 
ity  which  concerned  itself  with  one  of  the  victims  be 
cause  she  was  a  young  and  beautiful  girl.  Their  pity 
not  so  much  forgot  as  ignored  Northwick's  elder  daugh 
ter,  who  was  a  plain,  sick  old  maid,  and  followed  the 
younger  with  a  kind  of  shrinking  and  dread  of  her 
doom  which  Matt  tried  to  put  into  words. 

u  I  assure  you  if  I  couldn't  manage  to  pull  away 
from  it  at  moments,  I  don't  see  how  I  could  stand  it. 
I  had  a  sense  of  personal  disgrace,  when  I  met  that 
poor  girl,  with  what  I  had  in  my  mind.  I  felt  as  if  I 


88  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

were  taking  some  base  advantage  of  her  in  knowing 
that  about  her  father,  and  I  was  so  glad  when  she 
went  off  with  Louise  and  left  me  to  struggle  with  my 
infamous  information  alone.  I  hurried  Louise  away 
with  her  in  the  most  cowardly  haste.  We  don't  any 
of  us  realize  it,  as  you  say.  Why,  just  imagine !  It 
means  sorrow,  it  means  shame,  it  means  poverty. 
They  will  have  to  leave  their  house,  their  home  ;  she 
will  have  to  give  up  everything  to  the  company.  It 
isn't  merely  friends  and  her  place  in  the  world ;  it's 
money,  it's  something  to  eat  and  wear,  it's  a  roof  over 
her  head !  " 

Wade  refused  the  extreme  view  portrayed  by  his 
friend's  figures.  "  Of  course  she  won't  be  allowed  to 
come  to  want." 

"  Of  course.  But  there's  really  no  measuring  the 
sinuous  reach  of  a  disaster  like  this.  It  strikes  from 
a  coil  that  seems  to  involve  everything." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  if  you  get  bad  news  ?  " 
asked  Wade. 

"  Ah,  I  don't  know  !  I  must  tell  her,  somehow ; 
unless  you  think  that  you  — "  Wade  gave  a  start 
which  Matt  interpreted  aright ;  he  laughed  nervously. 
"  No,  no  !  It's  for  me  to  do  it.  I  know  that ;  unless 
I  can  get  Louise.  Ah  !  I  wonder  what  that  is." 

They  were  walking  back  toward  the  station  again, 
and  Matt  had  seen  a  head  and  arm  projected  from  the 
office  window,  and  a  hand  waving  a  sheet  of  yellow 
paper.  It  seemed  meant  for  them.  They  both  began 
to  run,  and  then  they  checked  themselves  ;  and  walked 
as  fast  as  they  could. 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  80 

"  We  must  refer  the  matter  to  your  sister,"  said 
Wade,  "  and  if  she  thinks  best,  remember  that  I  shall 
be  quite  ready  to  speak  to  Miss  Northwick.  Or,  if 
you  think  best,  I  will  speak  to  her  without  troubling 
your  sister." 

"  Oh,  you're  all  right,  Wade,  You  needn't  have 
any  doubt  of  that.  We'll  see.  I  wonder  what  there 
is  in  that  dispatch." 

The  old  station  master  had  come  out  of  the  station 
and  was  hurrying  to  meet  them  with  the  message,  now 
duly  enclosed  in  an  envelope.  He  gave  it  to  Matt 
arid  promptly  turned  his  back  on  him. 

Matt  tore  it  open,  and  read :  "  Impossible  to  iden 
tify  parlor-car  passengers."  The  telegram  was  signed 
"Operator,"  and  was  dated  at  Weilwater.  It  fell 
blankly  on  their  tense  feeling. 

"  Well,"  said  Wade,  after  a  long  breath.  "  It  isn't 
the  worst." 

Matt  read  it  frowningly  over  several  times  ;  then  he 
smiled.  "  Oh,  no.  This  isn't  at  all  bad.  It's  noth 
ing.  But  so  far,  it's  rather  comforting.  And  it's 
something,  even  if  it  is  nothing.  Well,  I  suppose  I'd 
better  go  up  to  Miss  Northwick  with  it.  Wait  a  mo 
ment  ;  I  must  tell  them  where  to  send  if  anything  else 
comes." 

"  I'll  walk  with  you  as  far  as  St.  Michael's,"  said 
Wade,  when  they  left  the  station.  "  I'm  going  to  my 
study,  there." 

They  set  off  together,  up  the  middle  of  the  street, 
which  gave  them  more  elbow-room  than  the  sidewalk 
narrowly  blocked  out  of  the  snow. 


90  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

From  a  large  store  as  they  were  passing,  a  small, 
dry-looking,  pompous  little  man  advanced  to  the  mid 
dle  of  the  street,  and  stopped  them.  "I  beg  your 
pardon,  Mr.  Wade !  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir !  "  he 
said,  nimbly  transferring  himself,  after  the  quasi  self- 
introduction,  from  Wade  to  Matt.  "May  I  ask 
whether  you  have  received  any  further  information?" 

« No,"  said  Matt,  amiably,  "  the  only  answer  we 
have  got  is  that  it  is  impossible  to  identify  the  passen 
gers  in  the  parlor-car." 

"  Ah,  thank  you !  Thank  you  very  much,  sir  !  I 
felt  sure  it  couldn't  be  our  Mr.  North  wick.  Er  — 
good-morning,  sir." 

He  bowed  himself  away,  and  went  into  his  store 
again,  and  Matt  asked  Wade,  "•  Who  in  the  world  is 
that?" 

"  He's  a  Mr.  Gerrish  —  keeps  the  large  store,  there. 
Rather  an  unpleasant  type." 

Matt  smiled.  "He  had  the  effect  of  refusing  to 
believe  that  anything  so  low  as  an  accident  could 
happen  to  a  man  of  Northwick's  business  standing." 

"  Something  of  that,"  Wade  assented.  "  He  wor 
ships  Northwick  on  the  altar  of  material  success." 

Matt  lifted  his  head  and  looked  about.  "  I  suppose 
the  whole  place  is  simply  seething  with  curiosity." 

Just  after  they  reached  the  side-street  where  Wade 
left  him  to  go  down  to  his  church,  he  met  Sue  North- 
wick  driving  in  her  sleigh.  She  was  alone,  except  for 
the  groom  impassive  in  the  rumble. 

"  Have  you  heard  anything  ?  "  she  asked,  sharply. 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  91 

Matt  repeated  the  dispatch  from  the  operator  at 
Wellwater. 

"  I  knew  it  was  a  mistake,"  she  said,  with  a  kind  of 
resolute  scorn.  "  It's  perfectly  ridiculous !  Why 
should  he  have  been  there  ?  I  think  there  ought  to 
be  some  way  of  punishing  the  newspapers  for  circu 
lating  false  reports.  I've  been  talking  with  the  man 
who  drove  my  father  to  the  train  yesterday  morning, 
and  he  says  he  spoke  lately  of  buying  some  horses  at 
Springfield.  He  got  several  from  a  farm  near  there 
once.  I'm  going  down  to  telegraph  the  farmer;  I 
found  his  name  among  father's  bills.  Of  course  he's 
there.  I've  got  the  dispatch  air  written  out." 

"  Let  me  take  it  back  to  the  station  for  you,  Miss 
Northwick,"  said  Matt. 

"  No ;  get  in  with  me  here,  and  we'll  drive  down, 
and  then  I'll  carry  you  back  home.  Or!  Here,  Den 
nis  !  "  she  said  to  the  man  in  the  rumble ;  and  she 
handed  him  the  telegram.  "Take  this  to  the  tele 
graph-office,  and  tell  them  to  send  it  up  by  Simpson 
the  instant  the  answer  comes." 

The  Irishman  said,  "Yes,  ma'am,"  and  dropped 
from  his  perch  with  the  paper  in  his  hand. 

"  Get  in,  Mr.  Hilary,"  she  said,  and  after  he  had 
mounted  she  skilfully  backed  the  sleigh  and  turned 
the  horses  homeward.  "  If  I  hear  nothing  from  my 
dispatch,  or  if  I  hear  wrong,  I  am  going  up  to  Well- 
water  Junction  myself,  by  the  first  train.  I  can't  wait 
any  longer.  If  it's  the  worst,  I  want  to  know  the 
worst." 


92  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

Matt  did  not  know  what  to  say  to  her  courage.  So 
he  said,  "  Alone  ?  "  to  gain  time. 

"  Of  course  !  At  such  a  time,  I  would  rather  be 
alone.' 

At  the  house  Matt  found  Louise  had  gone  to  her 
room  for  a  moment,  and  he  said  he  would  like  to  speak 
with  her  there. 

She  was  lying  on  the  lounge,  when  he  announced 
himself,  and  she  said,  "  Come  in,"  and  explained,  "  I 
just  came  off  a  moment,  to  give  my  sympathies  a  little 
rest.  And  then,  being  up  late  so  many  nights  this 
week.  What  have  you  heard  ?  " 

"  Nothing,  practically.  Louise,  how  long  did  you 
expect  to  stay  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  hadn't  thought.  As  long  as  I'm 
needed,  I  suppose.  Why  ?  Must  you  go  back  ?  " 

"  No  —  not  exactly." 

"  Not  exactly  ?     What  are  you  driving  at  ?  " 

"  Why,  there's  nothing  to  be  found  out  by  tele 
graphing.  Some  one  must  go  up  to  the  place  where  the 
accident  happened.  She  sees  that,  and  she  wants  to 
go.  She  can't  realize  at  all  what  it  means  to  go  there. 
Suppose  she  could  manage  the  journey,  going  alone, 
and  all  that ;  what  could  she  do  after  she  got  there  ? 
How  could  she  go  and  look  up  the  place  of  the  acci 
dent,  and  satisfy  herself  whether  her  father  was  —  " 

"  Matt !  "  shrieked  his  sister.  "  If  you  go  on,  you 
will  drive  me  wild.  She  mustn't  go ;  that's  all  there 
is  of  it.  You  mustn't  think  of  letting  her  go."  She 
sat  up  on  the  lounge  in.  expression  of  her  resolution  on 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  93 

this  point.  "She  must  send  somebody — some  of 
their  men.  She  mustn't  go.  It's  too  hideous  !  " 

"  No,"  said  Matt,  thoughtfully.     "  I  shall  go." 

"  You !  " 

u  Why  not  ?  I  can  be  at  the  place  by  four  or  five 
in  the  morning,  and  I  can  ascertain  all  the  facts,  and 
be  able  to  relieve  this  terrible  suspense  for  her." 

"  For  both  of  them,"  suggested  Louise.  "  It  must 
be  quite  as  bad  for  that  poor,  sick  old  maid." 

"Why,  of  course,'*  said  Matt,  and  he  felt  so  much 
ashamed  of  having  left  her  out  of  the  account  that  he 
added,  "  I  dare  say  it's  even  worse  for  her.  She's 
seen  enough  of  life  to  realize  it  more." 

"  Sue  was  his  favorite,  though,"  Louise  returned. 
"  Of  course  you  must  go,  Matt.  You  couldn't  do  less  ! 
It's  magnificent  of  you.  Have  you  told  her,  yet,  that 
you  would  go  ?  " 

"  Not  yet.  I  thought  I  would  talk  it  over  with 
you,  first." 

"  Oh,  /  approve  of  it.  It's  the  only  thing  to  do. 
And  I  had  better  stay  here  till  you  come  back  —  " 

"  Why,  no  ;  I'm  not  sure."  He  came  a  little  nearer 
and  dropped  his  voice.  "  You'd  better  know  the 
whole  trouble,  Louise.  There's  great  trouble  for  them 
whether  he's  dead  or  alive.  There's  something  wronw 

o  o 

in  his  accounts  with  the  company,  and  if  he  was  on 
that  train  he  was  running  away  to  Canada  to  escape 
arrest." 

He  could  see  that  only  partial  intelligence  of  the 
case  reached  her. 


94  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Then  if  he's  killed,  it  will  all  be  hushed  up.  I 
see!  It  makes  you  hope  he's  killed." 

Matt  gave  a  despairing  groan.  "If  he's  killed  it 
makes  it  just  so  much  the  worse.  The  defalcation  has 
to  come  out,  any  way." 

"When  must  it  come  out?  " 

"  A  good  many  people  know  of  it ;  and  such  things 
are  hard  to  keep.  It  may  come  out  —  some  rumor  of 
it  —  in  the  morning  papers.  The  question  is  whether 
you  want  to  stay  till  they  know  it  here ;  whether  it 
would  be  wise,  or  useful." 

"Certainly  not!  I  should  want  to  kill  anybody 
that  was  by  when  such  a  thing  as  that  came  out,  and 
I  should  despise  Sue  Northwick  if  she  let  me  get 
away  alive.  I  must  go  at  once  !  ' 

She  slid  herself  from  the  lounge,  and  ran  to  the 
glass,  where  she  put  up  a  coil  of  hair  in  the  knot 
it  had  escaped  from. 

"  I  had  my  doubts,"  Matt  said,  "  about  letting  you 
come  here,  without  telling  you  just  what  the  matter 
was ;  but  mother  thought  you  would  insist  upon  com 
ing,  any  way,  and  that  you  would  be  embarrassed." 

"  Oh,  that  was  quite  right,"  said  Louise.  "  The 
great  thing  now  is  to  get  away." 

"I  hope  you  won't  let  her  suspect  —  " 

"  Well,  I  think  you  can  trust  me  for  that,  Matt," 
said  Louise,  turning  round  upon  him,  with  a  hair-pin 
in  her  mouth,  long  enough  to  give  him  as  sarcastic  a 
glance  as  she  could.  If  her  present  self-possession 
was  a  warrant  of  future  performance,  Matt  thought 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  95 

lie  could  trust  her ;  but  he  was  afraid  Louise  had 
not  taken  in  the  whole  enormity  of  the  fact ;  and  he 
was  right  in  this.  As  a  crime,  she  did  not  then,  or 
ever  afterwards,  fully  imagine  it.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  she  conceived  of  it  as  other  than  a  great 
trouble,  and  as  something  that  ought  always  to  be  kept 
from  her  friend. 

Matt  went  down  stairs  and  found  Sue  North  wick  in 
the  library. 

"I  feel  perfectly  sure,"  she  said,  "that  we  shall 
hear  of  my  father  at  Springfield.  One  of  the  horses 
he  got  there  has  gone  lame,  and  it  would  be  quite  like 
him  to  stop  and  look  up  another  in  the  place  of  it  on 
the  same  farm." 

The  logic  of  this  theory  did  not  strike  Matt,  but  the 
girl  held  her  head  in  such  a  strong  way,  she  drew  her 
short  breaths  with  such  a  smoothness,  she  so  visibly 
concealed  her  anxiety  in  the  resolution  to  believe  her 
self  what  she  said  that  he  could  not  refuse  it  the 
tribute  of  an  apparent  credence.  "  Yes,  that  certainly 
makes  it  seem  probable." 

"  At  any  rate,"  she  said,  u  if  I  hear  nothing  from 
him  there,  or  we  get  no  news  from  Wellwater,  I  shall 
go  there  at  once.  I've  made  up  my  mind  to  that." 

"  I  shouldn't  wish  you  to  go  alone,  Sue,"  Adeline 
quavered.  Her  eyes  were  red,  and  her  lips  swollen  as 
if  she  had  been  crying ;  and  now  the  tears  came  with 
her  words.  "  You  could  never  get  there  alone  in  the 
world.  Don't  you  remember,  it  took  us  all  day  to  get 
to  Well  water  the  last  time  we  went  to  Quebec  ?  " 


96  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

Sue  gave  her  sister  a  severe  look,  as  if  to  quell  her 
open  fears  at  least,  and  Matt  asked  aimlessly,  "  Is  it 
on  the  way  to  Quebec  ?  " 

Sue  picked  up  the  railroad  guide  from  the  desk 
where  she  had  left  it.  "  Yes  ;  it  is,  and  it  isn't."  She 
opened  the  book  and  showed  him  the  map  of  the  road. 
"The  train  divides  at  Wellwater,  and  part  goes  to 
Montreal  and  part  to  Quebec.  There  are  all  sorts  of 
stops  and  starts  on  the  Quebec  branch,  so  that  you 
don't  arrive  till  next  morning,  but  you  get  to  Montreal 
in  five  or  six  hours.  But  the  whole  thing  seems  per 
fectly  frantic.  I  don't  see  why  we  pay  the  slightest 
attention  to  it !  Of  course,  papa  has  stayed  over  in 
Springfield  for  something  ;  only  he's  usually  so  careful 
about  telegraphing  us  if  he  changes  his  plans  —  " 

She  faltered,  and  let  the  book  drop.  Matt  picked 
it  up  for  her,  and  began  to  look  at  the  time-table,  at 
first  to  hide  the  pain  he  felt  at  the  self-discourage 
ment  in  which  she  ended,  and  then  to  see  if  he  might 
not  somehow  be  useful  to  her.  "  I  see  that  a  train 
from  Boston  meets  the  Springfield  train  at  Wellwater," 

"•  Does  there  ?  "  She  bent  to  look  over  the  book 
with  him,  and  he  felt  the  ungovernable  thrill  at  being 
near  the  beauty  of  a  woman's  face  which  a  man  never 
knows  whether  to  be  ashamed  of  or  glad  of,  but  which 
he  cannot  help  feeling.  "  Then  perhaps  I  had  better 
go  by  way  of  Boston.  What  time  does  it  start  ?  Oh, 
I  see  !  Seven,  thirty.  I  could  get  that  train  —  if  I 
don't  hear  from  him  at  Springfield.  But  I  know  I 
shall  hear." 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY.  97 

A  stir  of  drapery  made  them  aware  of  Louise  at  the 
library  door.  Suzette  went  toward  her,  "Are  you 
going  ? "  she  asked,  without  apparently  sharing  the 
surprise  Matt  felt  at  seeing  his  sister  with  her  hat  and 
gloves  on,  and  her  jacket  over  her  arm. 

"Yes,  I'm  going,  Sue.  I  just  ran  up  to  see  you  — 
I  had  to  do  that  —  but  we  both  know  I'm  of  no  use 
here  ;  and  so  we  won't  make  any  pretences."  Louise 
spoke  very  steadily,  almost  coldly ;  her  brother  did 
not  quite  know  what  to  make  of  her ;  she  was  pale, 
and  she  looked  down,  while  she  spoke.  But  when 
she  finished  buttoning  the  glove  she  was  engaged  with, 
she  went  up  and  put  both  her  hands  in  Suzette's.  "  I 
don't  need  to  tell  you  that  I'm  going  just  to  get  myself 
out  of  your  way.  It  isn't  a  time  for  ornamental  friend- 
shipping,  and  }^ou've  got  all  the  good  you  could  out  of 
seeing  me,  and  knowing  that  I'm  anxious  with  you. 
That's  about  all  there  is  of  it,  and  I  guess  we'd  better 
not  spin  it  out.  But  remember,  Sue,  whenever  you 
need  me,  when  you  really  want  me,  you  can  send  for 
me,  and  if  I  don't  come  again  till  you  do,  you'll  know 
that  I'm  simply  waiting.  Will  you  remember  that  — 
whatever  happens  ?  " 

Matt  gave  a  long  tacit  sigh  of  relief. 

"Yes.  I  will,  Louise,"  said  Suzette.  They  kissed 
each  other  as  if  in  formal  ratification  of  their  compact, 
which  meant  so  much  more  to  one  of  them  than  it 
could  to  the  other. 

"  Come,  Matt !  "  said  Louise. 

She  added  hastily,  to  Brevent  insistence  against  her 


98  THE    QUALITY    OP    MERCY. 

plan,  that  they  would  have  time  to  walk  to  the  station, 
and  she  wished  to  walk.  Then  Matt  said,  "  I  will  see 
you  aboard  the  train,  and  then  I'll  come  back  and  wait 
till  you  hear  from  Springfield,  Miss  Suzette." 

"  That  is  a  good  idea,"  said  Louise. 

"  But,"  Adeline  urged  tremulously,  "  sha'n't  you  be 
afraid  to  go  to  Boston  alone  ?  It'll  be  dark  by  the  time 
you  get  there  !  " 

"  The  journey  can't  be  very  dangerous,"  said  Louise, 
"  and  when  I  arrive,  I  shall  put  myself  in  charge  of  a 
faithful  Boston  hackman,  and  tell  him  I'm  very  valu 
able,  and  am  to  be  taken  the  best  of  care  of.  Then  I 
shall  be  set  down  at  our  door  in  perfect  safety." 

They  all  had  the  relief  of  a  little  laugh  ;  even  Ade 
line  joined  reluctantly  in  it. 

When  they  were  once  free  of  the  house,  Matt  said, 
"  I  wonder  whether  she  will  remember,  after  the  worst 
comes,  what  you  said,  and  whether  she  will  trust  you 
enough  to  turn  to  us  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Probably  she  will  be  too  proud  at 
first.  But  I  shall  come,  whether  she  asks  me  or  not. 
If  they  had  relations  or  connections,  as  everybody  else 
has,  it  would  be  different.  But  as  it  is  —  " 

"  Yes,  of  course,"  said  Matt. 

"  I  wish  I  could  realize  that  Sue  is  fond  of  him,  as 
we  are  of  papa.  But  I  can't.  He  always  made  me 
feel  creepy ;  didn't  he  you  ?  " 

"  He  was  a  secret  person.  But  as  far  as  I  had  any 
thing  to  do  with  him  at  the  Mills,  when  I  was  there,  I 
found  him  square  enough.  He  was  a  country  person." 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  99 

"  I  suppose  Sue's  pricie  is  countrified,"  said  Louise. 

Matt  went  on,  "  His  secrecy  may  have  been  only  a 
sort  of  shyness ;  Heaven  knows  I  don't  want  to  judge 
him.  I  suppose  that  that  slow  deliberation  of  his  was 
an  effort  to  maintain  himself  with  dignity.  Of  course, 
we  see  him  now  in  the  light  of  his  rascality,  poor 
man,  and  most  of  his  traits  seem  ugly." 

They  had  a  little  time  after  they  reached  the  sta 
tion,  and  they  walked  up  and  down  the  platform,  talk 
ing,  and  Matt  explained  how  his  father  might  be  glad 
to  have  him  go  to  Wellwater  arid  settle  the  question 
whether  Northwick  was  in  the  accident  or  not.  It 
would  be  a  great  relief  for  him  to  know.  He  tried  to 
make  out  that  he  was  going  from  a  divided  motive. 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  be  at  the  trouble  to  say  all  that 
to  me,  Matt,"  said  Louise.  "  I  don't  blame  you  for 
wanting  to  go,  even  out  of  kindness." 

"  No,  I  suppose  there's  no  guilt  attaching  to  a  thing 
of  that  kind,"  Matt  answered. 

There  were  a  good  many  loungers  about  the  sta 
tion,  young  men  and  girls,  released  from  the  shops  for 
the  day  ;  in  such  towns  they  find  the  station  an  agree 
able  resort,  and  enjoy  a  never-failing  excitement  in 
the  coming  and  going  of  the  trains.  They  watched 
the  Hilarys,  as  they  walked,  with  envy  of  that  some 
thing  distinguished  which  both  of  them  had.  They 
were  both  tall  and  handsomely  made,  and  they  had 
the  ease  before  their  fellow-beings  which  perhaps 
comes  as  much  from  the  life-long  habit  of  good  clothes 
as  from  anything  else.  Matt  had  a  conscience  against 


100  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

whatever  would  separate  him  from  his  kind,  but  he 
could  not  help  carrying  himself  like  a  swell,  for  all 
that ;  and  Louise  did  not  try  to  help  it,  for  her  part. 
She  was  an  avowed  worldling,  and  in  this  quality  she 
now  wore  a  drab  cloth  costume,  bordered  with  black 
fur  down  the  front  of  the  jacket  and  around  it  at  the 
hips  ;  the  skirt,  which  fell  plain  to  her  feet,  had  a  bor 
der  of  fur  there,  and  it  swirled  and  swayed  with  her 
long,  dashing  stride  in  a  way  that  filled  all  those  poor 
girls  who  saw  it,  with  despair.  It  seemed  to  interest 
almost  as  painfully  a  young  man  with  a  thin,  delicate 
face,  whom  she  noticed  looking  at  her  ;  she  took  him 
at  first  for  one  of  those  educated  or  half-educated 
operatives,  who  are  complicating  the  labor  problem 
more  and  more.  He  was  no  better  dressed  than  others 
in  the  crowd,  and  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  be  a  hat-shop  or  a  shoe-shop  hand,  and  yet,  at  a 
second  glance,  she  decided  that  he  was  not.  He  stood 
staring  at  her  with  a  studious  frown,  and  with  the 
faint  suggestion  of  a  sneer  on  his  clean-shaven,  fine 
lips ;  but  she  knew  that  he  was  admiring  her,  how 
ever  he  might  be  hating  her,  and  she  spoke  to  Matt 
about  him  as  they  turned  from  him  in  their  walk  and 
promised  to  point  him  out.  But  when  they  came  up 
again  to  where  he  had  been  standing,  he  was  gone. 
The  train  came  in,  and  Louise  got  aboard,  and  Matt 
made  his  way  into  the  station,  and  went  to  ask  the 
operator  in  the  telegraph  office  if  she  had  got  anything 
for  Miss  Northwick. 

She  said,  "  Something  just  come.    I  was  waiting  for 
the  hack  to  send  it  up." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  101 

"  Oh,  I  will  take  it,  if  you  please.  I  aui  going  back 
to  Mr.  Northwick's,"  said  Matt. 

"All  right." 

Matt  took  the  dispatch,  and  hurried  out  to  find 
some  means  of  getting  quickly  to  Miss  North  wick 
with  it.  There  was  no  conveyance  about  the  station, 
and  he  started  up  the  street  at  a  gait  which  was  little 
short  of  a  run,  and  which  exposed  him  to  the  ridicule 
of  such  small  boys  as  observed  his  haste,  in  their  inter 
vals  of  punging.  One,  who  dropped  from  the  runner 
of  a  sleigh  which  came  up  behind  him,  jeered  him  for 
the  awkwardness  with  which  he  floundered  out  of  its 
way  in  the  deep  snow  of  the  roadside.  The  sleigh  was 
abruptly  halted,  and  Sue  Northwick  called  from  it, 
"  Mr.  Hilary  !  I  couldn't  wait  at  home  ;  and  I've  just 
been  at  the  depot  by  the  lower  road.  You  have  a  dis 
patch  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  have  a  telegram." 

"  Oh,  give  it  to  me  !  " 

He  withheld  it  a  moment.  "  I  don't  know  what  it 
is,  Miss  Northwick.  But  if  isn't  what  you  expected, 
will  you  let  —  will  you  allow  me  —  " 

As  if  she  did  not  know  what  she  was  doing,  she 
caught  the  dispatch  from  his  hand,  and  tore  it  open. 
"  Well,"  she  said,  "  I  knew  it.  He  hasn't  been  there ; 
now  I  shall  go  to  Wellwater."  She  crumpled  the  tele 
gram  nervously  in  her  hand,  and  made  a  motion  to  lift 
the  reins. 

Matt  put  his  hand  on  her  wrist.  "  You  couldn't. 
You  —  you  must  let  me  go." 


102  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"You?" 

"  Me.  I  can  get  into  Boston  in  time  for  that  half- 
past-seven  train,  and  I  can  do  all  the  things  when  I 
get  to  Wellwater  that  you  couldn't  do.  Come  ;  be 
reasonable  !  You  must  see  that  what  I  propose  is 
best.  I  solemnly  promise  you  that  nothing  shall  be 
left  undone,  or  omitted  or  forgotten,  that  could  set 
your  mind  at  rest.  Whatever  you  would  wish  done,  I 
will  do.  Go  home  ;  your  sister  needs  you  ;  you  need 
yourself ;  if  you  have  a  trial  to  meet  greater  than  this 
suspense,  which  you've  borne  with  such  courage,  you 
want  all  your  strength  for  it.  I  beg  you  to  trust  me 
to  do  this  for  you.  I  know  that  it  seems  recreant  to 
let  another  go  in  your  place  on  such  an  errand,  but  it 
really  isn't  so.  You  ought  to  know  that  I  wouldn't 
offer  to  go  if  I  were  not  sure  that  I  could  do  all  that 
you  could  do,  and  more.  Come !  Let  me  go  for 
you !  " 

He  poured  out  his  reasons  vehemently,  and  she  sat 
like  one  without  strength  to  answer.  When  he 
stopped,  she  still  waited  before  she  answered  simply, 
almost  dryly,  "  Well,"  and  she  gave  no  other  sign  of 
assent  in  words.  But  she  turned  over  the  hand,  on 
which  he  was  keeping  his,  and  clutched  his  hand  hard ; 
the  tears,  the  first  she  had  shed  that  day,  gushed  into 
her  eyes.  She  lifted  the  reins  and  drove  away,  and 
he  stood  in  the  road  gazing  after  her,  till  her  sleigh 
vanished  over  the  rise  of  ground  to  the  southward. 


XIII. 

THE  pale  light  in  which  Matt  Hilary  watched  the 
sleigh  out  of  sight  thickened  into  early  winter  dusk 
before  his  train  came  and  he  got  off  to  Boston.  In 
the  meantime  the  electrics  came  out  like  sudden 
moons,  and  shed  a  lunar  ray  over  the  region  round 
about  the  station,  where  a  young  man,  who  was  in  the 
habit  of  describing  himself  in  print  as  "  one  of  The 
Boston  Events'  young  men,"  found  his  way  into  an  eat 
ing-house  not  far  from  the  track.  It  had  a  simple, 
domestic  effect  inside,  and  the  young  man  gave  a  sigh 
of  comfort  in  the  pleasant  warmth  and  light.  There 
was  a  woman  there  who  had  a  very  conversable  air,  a 
sort  of  eventual  sociability,  as  the  young  man  realized 
when  she  looked  up  from  twitching  the  white,  clean 
cloths  perfectly  straight  on  the  little  tables  set  in  rows 
on  either  side  of  the  room. 

She  finally  reached  the  table  where  the  young  man 
had  taken  a  chair  for  his  overcoat  and  hat,  and  was 
about  taking  another  for  himself. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  let's  see.  No  use  asking  if 
you've  got  coffee  ?  "  He  inhaled  the  odor  of  it  com 
ing  from  the  open  door  of  another  room,  with  a  deep 
breath. 

"  Baked  beans  ?  " 


104  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

«  Yes." 

"  Well,  I  don't  think  there's  anything  much  better 
than  baked  beans.  Do  you  ?  " 

"  Well,  not  when  you  git  'em  good"  the  woman 
admitted.  "TfoVgood." 

"  And  what's  the  matter  with  a  piece  of  mince  pie  ?  " 

"  I  don't  see's  there's  any  great  deal.     Hot  ?  " 

"  Every  time." 

"I  thought  so,"  said  the  woman.  "  We  have  it  both 
ways,  but  I'd  as  soon  eat  a  piece  of  I  don't  know  what 
as  a  piece  o'  cold  mince  pie." 

"  We  have  mince  pie  right  along  at  our  house,"  said 
the  young  man.  "  But  I  guess  if  I  was  to  eat  a  piece 
of  it  cold,  my  wife  would  have  the  doctor  round  inside 
of  five  minutes." 

The  woman  laughed  as  if  for  joy  in  the  hot  mince- 
pie  fellowship  established  between  herself  and  the 
young  man.  "  Well,  I  guess  she  need  to.  Nothin'  else 
you  want  ?  "  She  brought  the  beans  and  coffee,  with 
a  hot  plate,  and  a  Japanese  paper  napkin,  and  she  said, 
as  she  arranged  them  on  the  table  before  the  young 
man,  "  Your  pie's  warmin'  for  you ;  I  got  you  some 
rolls;  they're  just  right  out  the  oven;  and  here's 
some  the  best  butter  I  ever  put  a  knife  to,  if  I  do  say 
so.  It's  just  as  good  and  sweet  as  butter  can  be,  if  it 
didn't  come  from  the  Northwick  place  at  a  dollar  a 
pound." 

u  Well,  now,  I  should  have  thought  you'd  have  used 
the  Northwick  butter,"  said  the  young  man  with 
friendly  irony. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  105 

"  You  know  the  Northwick  butter  ?  "  said  the  woman, 
charmed  at  the  discovery  of  another  tie. 

"  Well,  my  wife  likes  it  for  cooking,"  said  the  young 
man.  "  We  have  a  fancy  brand  for  the  table." 

The  woman  laughed  out  her  delight  in  his  pleas 
antry.  "  Land  !  I'll  bet  you  grumble  at  it,  too !  "  she 
said,  with  a  precipitate  advance  in  intimacy  which  he 
did  not  disallow. 

"  Well,  I'm  pretty  particular,"  said  the  young  man. 
"  But  I  have  to  be,  to  find  anything  to  find  fault  with 
in  the  way  my  wife  manages.  I  don't  suppose  I  shall 
be  able  to  get  much  more  Northwick  butter,  now." 

"Why  not?" 

"Why,  if  he  was  killed  in  that  accident  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  guess  there  ain't  anything  to  that,"  said  the 
woman.  "  I  guess  it  was  some  other  Northwick. 
Their  coachman  —  Elbridge  Newton  —  was  tellin'  my 
husband  that  Mr.  Northwick  had  stopped  over  at 
Springfield  to  look  at  some  hosses  there.  He's  always 
buyin'  more  bosses.  I  guess  he  must  have  as  much  as 
eighty  or  ninety  hosses  now.  I  don't  place  any  de 
pendence  on  that  report." 

"That  so?"  said  the  young  man.  "Why,  what 
did  that  fellow  mean,  over  at  the  drug  store,  just  now, 
by  his  getting  out  for  Canada  ?  " 

"  What  fellow  ?  " 

"  Little  slim  chap,  with  a  big  black  moustache,  and 
blue  eyes,  blue  and  blazing,  as  you  may  say." 

"  Oh,  —  Mr.  Putney !  That's  just  one  of  his  jokes. 
He's  always  down  on  Mr.  Northwick." 


106  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  Then  I  suppose  he's  just  gone  up  to  Ponkwasset 
about  the  trouble  there." 

"  Labor  trouble  ? " 

"I  guess  so." 

The  woman  called  toward  an  open  door  at  the  end 
of  the  room,  "  William !  "  and  a  man  in  his  shirt  sleeves 
showed  himself.  "  You  heard  of  any  labor  trouble  to 
Mr.  Northwick's  mills  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  believe  there  is  any,"  said  the  man. 
He  came  forward  inquiringly  to  the  table  where  his 
wife  was  standing  by  the  Events'  young  man. 

"  "Well,  I'm  sorry,"  said  the  young  man,  "  but  it 
shows  that  I  haven't  lost  so  much  in  missing  Mr. 
Northwick,  after  all.  I  came  up  here  from  Boston  to 
interview  him  for  our  paper  about  the  labor  troubles." 

"  I  want  to  know !  "  said  the  hostess.  "  You  an  edi 
tor?" 

"Weil,  I'm  a  reporter  —  same  thing,"  the  young 
man  answered.  "  Perhaps  you've  got  some  troubles 
of  your  own  here  in  your  shops  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  host,  "  I  guess  everybody's  pretty 
well  satisfied  here  in  Hatboro'."  He  was  tempted  to 
talk  by  the  air  of  confidence  which  the  Events'  young 
man  somehow  diffused  about  him,  but  his  native  Yankee 
caution  prevailed,  and  he  did  not  take  the  lead  offered 
him. 

"  Well,"  said  the  young  man,  "  I  noticed  one  of  your 
citizens  over  at  the  drug  store  that  seemed  to  be  pretty 
happy." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  Mr.  Putney.  I  heard  you  tellin'  my 
wife." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  107 

"  Who  is  Mr.  Putney,  any  way  ?  "  asked  the  Events' 
man. 

"  Mr.  Putney  ?  "  the  host  repeated,  with  a  glance 
at  his  wife,  as  if  for  instruction  or  correction  in  case 
he  should  go  wrong.  "  He's  one  of  the  old  Hatboro' 
Putneys,  here." 

"  All  of  'em  preserved  in  liquor,  the  same  way  ?  " 

"Well,  no,  I  can't  say  as  they  are."  The  host 
laughed,  but  not  with  much  liking,  apparently.  His 
wife  did  not  laugh  at  all,  and  the  young  man  perceived 
that  he  had  struck  a  false  note. 

"  Pity,"  he  said,  "  to  see  a  man  like  that,  goin'  that 
way.  He  said  more  bright  things  in  five  minutes, 
drunk  as  he  was,  than  I  could  say  in  a  month  on  a 
strict  prohibition  basis." 

The  good  understanding  was  restored  by  this  ready 
self-abasement.  "  Well,  I  d'  know  as  you  can  say  that, 
exactly,"  said  the  hostess,  "  but  he  is  bright,  there 
ain't  any  two  ways  about  it.  And  he  ain't  always 
that  way  you  see  him.  It's  just  one  of  his  times,  now. 
He  has  'em  about  once  in  every  four  or  five  months, 
and  the  rest  part  he's  just  as  straight  as  anybody. 
It's  like  a  disease,  as  I  tell  my  husband." 

"  I  guess  if  he  was  a  mind  to  steady  up,  there  ain't 
any  lawyer  could  go  ahead  of  him,  well,  not  in  this 
town,"  said  the  husband. 

"  Seems  to  be  pretty  popular  as  it  is,"  said  the  young 
man.  "  What  makes  him  so  down  on  Mr.  Northwick  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  dunno,"  said  the  host,  "  what  it  is.  He's 
always  been  so.  I  presume  it's  more  the  kind  of  a  man 
Mr.  Northwick  is,  than  what  it  is  anything  else." 


108  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  Why,  what  kind  of  a  man  is  Mr.  North  wick,  any 
way  ?  "  the  young  man  asked,  beginning  to  give  his 
attention  to  the  pie,  which  the  woman  had  now 
brought.  "  He  don't  seem  to  be  so  popular.  What's 
the  reason." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  could  say,  exactly.  I 
presume,  one  thing,  he's  only  been  here  summers  till 
this  year,  since  his  wife  died,  and  he  never  did  have 
much  to  do  with  the  place,  before." 

"  What's  he  living  here  for  this  winter  ?  Econo 
mizing  ?  " 

"No;  I  guess  he  no  need  to  do  that,"  the  host 
answered. 

His  wife  looked  knowing,  and  said  with  a  laugh,  "  I 
guess  Miss  Sue  Northwick  could  tell  you  if  she  was  a 
mind  to." 

"  Oh,  I  see,"  said  the  reporter,  with  an  irreverence 
that  seemed  to  be  merely  provisional  and  held  subject 
to  instant  exchange  for  any  more  available  attitude. 
"  Young  man  in  the  case.  Friendless  minister  whose 
slippers  require  constant  attention  ?  " 

"  I  guess  he  ain't  very  friendless,"  said  the  hostess, 
"  as  far  forth  as  that  goes.  He's  about  the  most  popu 
lar  minister,  especially  with  the  workin'  folks,  since 
Mr.  Peck." 

"Who  was  Mr.  Peck?" 

"  Well,  he  was  the  one  that  was  run  over  by  the 
cars  at  the  depot  here  two  or  three  years  back.  Why, 
this  house  was  started  on  his  idea.  Sort  of  co-opera 
tion  at  first ;  we  run  it  for  the  Social  Union." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          109 

"And  the  co-operation  petered  out,"  said  the  re 
porter  making  a  note.  "  Always  does  ;  and  then  you 
took  it,  and  began  to  make  money.  Standard  history 
of  co-operation." 

"  I  guess  we  ain't  gettin'  rich  any  too  fast,"  said  the 
hostess,  dryly. 

"  Well,  you  will  if  you  use  the  North  wick  batter. 
What's  the  reason  he  isn't  popular  here  when  he  is 
here  ?  Must  spend  a  good  deal  of  money  on  that 
big  place  of  his ;  and  give  work." 

"  Mr.  Putney  says  it's  corruptin'  to  have  such  a 
rich  man  in  the  neighborhood  ;  and  he  does  more  harm 
than  good  with  his  money."  The  hostess  threw  out 
the  notion  as  if  it  were  something  she  had  never  been 
quite  able  to  accept  herself,  and  would  like  to  see  its 
effect  upon  a  man  of  the  reporter's  wide  observation. 
"He  thinks  Hatboro'  was  better  off  before  there  was  a 
single  hat-shop  or  shoe-shop  in  the  place." 

"  And  the  law  offices  had  it  all  to  themselves,"  said 
the  young  man ;  and  he  laughed.  "  Well,  it  was  a 
halcyon  period.  What  sort  of  a  man  is  Mr.  North- 
wick,  personally  ?  " 

The  woman  referred  the  question  to  her  husband, 
who  pondered  it  a  moment.  u  Well,  he's  a  kind  of  a 
close-mouthed  man.  He's  never  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  Hatboro'  folks  much.  But  I  never  heard 
anything  against  him.  I  guess  he's  a  pretty  good 
man." 

"  Wouldn't  be  likely  to  mention  it  round  a  great 
deal  if  he  was  going  to  Canada.  Heigh  ?  Well,  I'm 


110  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

sorry  I  can't  see  Mr.  Northwick,  after  all.  With 
these  strikes  in  the  mills  everywhere,  he  must  have 
some  light  to  throw  on  the  labor  question  generally. 
Poor  boy,  himself,  I  believe  ?  " 

"I  don't  believe  his  daughters  could  remember 
when,"  said  the  hostess,  sarcastically. 

"  That's  so  ?  Well,  we  are  apt  to  lose  our  memory 
for  dates  as  we  get  on  in  the  world,  especially  the 
ladies.  Ponkwasset  isn't  on  the  direct  line  of  this 
road,  is  it  ? "  He  asked  this  of  the  host,  as  if  it 
followed. 

"No,  you  got  to  change  at  Springfield,  and  take 
the  Union  and  Dominion  road  there.  Then  it's  on  a 
branch." 

"  Well,  I  guess  I  shall  have  to  run  up  and  see  Mr. 
Northwick,  there.  What  did  you  say  the  young  man's 
name  was  that's  keeping  the  Northwick  family  here 
this  winter  ? "  He  turned  suddenly  to  the  hostess, 
putting  up  his  note-book,  and  throwing  a  silver  dollar 
on  the  table  to  be  changed.  "  Married  man  myself, 
you  know." 

"  I  guess  I  hain't  mentioned  any  names,"  said  the 
woman  in  high  glee.  Her  husband  went  back  to  the 
kitchen,  and  she  took  the  dollar  away  to  a  desk  in  the 
corner  of  the  room,  and  brought  back  the  change. 

"  Who'd  be  a  good  person  to  talk  with  about  the 
labor  situation  here  ? "  the  young  man  asked,  in 
pocketing  his  money. 

"  I  d'  know  as  I  could  hardly  tell,"  said  the  hostess 
thoughtfully.  "  There's  Colonel  Marvin,  he's  got  the 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  Ill 

largest  shoe-shop ;  and  some  the  hat-shop  folks,  most 
any  of  'ein  would  do.  And  then  there's  Mr.  Wil- 
min  o-ton  that  owns  the  stocking  mills ;  him  or  Mr. 

£D  O 

Jack  Wilmington,  either  one  'd  be  good.     Mr.  Jack  'd 
be  the  best,  I  guess.     Or  I  don't  suppose  there's  any- 
buddy  in  the  place  'd  know  more,  if  they  'd  a  mind  to 
talk,  than  Mrs.  Wilmington ;  unless  it  was  Mis'  Doc 
ter  Morrell." 

"  Is  Mr.  Jack  their  son  ?  "  asked  the  reporter. 

"Land!  Why  she  ain't  a  day  older,  if  she's  that. 
He's  their  nephew." 

"  Oh,  I  see :  second  wife.  Then  he's  the  young 
man,  heigh !  " 

The  hostess  looked  at  the  reporter  with  admiration. 
"Well,  you  do  beat  the  witch.  If  he  hain't,  I  guess 
he  might  'a'  b'en." 

The  reporter  said  he  guessed  he  would  take  another 
piece  of  that  pie,  and  some  more  coffee  if  she  had  it, 
and  before  he  had  finished  them  he  had  been  allowed 
to  understand  that  if  it  was  not  for  his  being  Mrs. 
Wilmington's  nephew  Mr.  Jack  would  have  been  Miss 
Northwick's  husband  long  ago ;  and  that  the  love  lost 
between  the  two  ladies  was  not  worth  crying  for. 

The  reporter,  who  had  fallen  into  his  present  call 
ing  by  a  series  of  accidents  not  necessarily  of  final 
result  in  it,  did  not  use  arts  so  much  as  instincts  in  its 
exercise.  He  liked  to  talk  of  himself  and  his  own 
surroundings,  and  he  found  that  few  men,  and  no 
women  could  resist  the  lure  thrown  out  by  his  sincere 
expansiveness.  Ke  now  commended  himself  to  the 


112          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

hostess  by  the  philosophical  view  he  took  of  the  pop 
ular  belief  that  Mrs.  Wilmington  was  keeping  her 
nephew  from  marrying  any  one  else  so  as  to  marry 
him  herself  when  her  husband  died.  He  said  that  if 
you  were  an  old  man  and  you  married  a  young  woman 
he  guessed  that  was  what  you  had  got  to  expect. 
This  gave  him  occasion  to  enlarge  upon  the  happiness 
to  be  found  only  in  the  married  state  if  you  were  fitly 
mated,  and  on  his  own  exceptional  good  fortune  in  it. 

He  was  in  the  full  flow  of  an  animated  confidence 
relating  to  the  flat  he  had  just  taken  and  furnished  in 
Boston,  when  the  door  opened,  and  the  pale  young 
man  whom  Louise  Hilary  had  noticed  at  the  station, 
came  in. 

The  reporter  broke  off  with  a  laugh  of  greeting. 
"  Hello,  Maxwell !  You  onto  it,  too  ?  " 

"  Onto  what  ? "  said  the  other,  with  none  of  the 
reporter's  effusion. 

"This  labor-trouble  business,"  said  the  reporter, 
with  a  wink  for  him  alone. 

"  Pshaw,  Pinney !  You'd  grow  a  bush  for  the 
pleasure  of  beating  about  it."  Maxwell  hung  his  hat 
on  a  hook  above  the  table,  but  sat  down  fronting  Pin 
ney  with  his  overcoat  on ;  it  was  a  well-worn  over 
coat,  irredeemably  shabby  at  the  buttonholes.  "  I'd 
like  some  tea,"  he  said  to  the  hostess,  "  some  English 
breakfast  tea,  if  you  have  it;  and  a  little  toast."  He 
rested  his  elbows  on  the  table,  and  took  his  head  be 
tween  his  hands,  and  pressed  his  fingers  against  his 
temples. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          113 

"  Headache  ? ''  asked  Pinney,  with  the  jocose  sym 
pathy  men  show  one  another's  sufferings,  as  if  they 
could  be  joked  away.  "  Better  take  something  sub 
stantial.  Nothing  like  ham  and  eggs  for  a  headache." 

The  other  unfolded  his  paper  napkin.  "  Have  you 
got  anything  worth  while  ?  " 

"  Lots  of  public  opinion  and  local  color,"  said  Pin 
ney.  "  Have  you  ?  " 

"  I've  been  half  crazy  with  this  headache.  I  sup 
pose  we  brought  most  of  the  news  with  us,"  he  sug 
gested. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  Pinney. 

"  I  do.  You  got  your  tip  straight  from  headquar 
ters.  I  know  all  about  it,  Pinney,  so  you  might  as 
well  save  time,  on  that  point,  if  time's  an  object  with 
you.  They  don't  seem  to  know  anything  here  ;  but 
the  consensus  in  Hatboro'  is  that  he  was  running 
away." 

"  The  what  is  ?  "  asked  Pinney. 

"The  consensus." 

"  Anything  like  the  United  States  Census  ?  " 

"It  isn't  spelt  like  it." 

Pinney  made  a  note  of  it.  "  I'll  get  a  head-line  out 
of  that.  I  take  my  own  wherever  I  find  it,  as  George 
Washington  said." 

"  Your  own,  you  thief !  "  said  Maxwell,  with  sar 
donic  amusement.  "  You  don't  know  what  the  word 
means." 

"  I  can  make  a  pretty  good  guess,  thank  you,"  said 
Pinney,  putting  up  his  book. 


114          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  Do  you  want  to  trade  ?  "  Maxwell  asked,  after  his 
tea  came,  and  lie  had  revived  himself  with  a  sip  or 
two. 

"  Any  scoops  ?  "  asked  Pinney,  warily.  "  Any 
thing  exclusive  ? " 

"  Oh,  come  !  "  said  Maxwell.  "  No,  I  haven't ;  and 
neither  have  you.  What  do  you  make  mysteries  for  ? 
I've  been  over  the  whole  ground,  and  so  have  you. 
There  are  no  scoops  in  it." 

"  I  think  there's  a  scoop  if  you  want  to  work  it," 
said  Pinney,  darkly. 

Maxwell  received  the  vaunt  with  a  sneer.  "  You 
ought  to  be  a  detective  —  in  a  novel."  H,e  buttered 
his  toast  and  ate  a  little  of  it,  like  a  man  of  small 
appetite  and  invalid  digestion. 

"I  suppose  you've  interviewed  the  family?"  sug 
gested  Pinney. 

"  No,"  said  Maxwell,  gloomily,  "  there  are  some 
things  that  even  a  space-man  can't  do." 

"  You  ought  to  go  back  on  a  salary,"  said  Pinney, 
with  compassion  and  superiority.  "  You'll  ruin  your 
self  trying  to  fill  space,  if  you  stick  at  trifles." 

"  Such  as  going  and  asking  a  man's  family  whether 
they  think  he  was  burnt  up  in  a  railroad  accident,  and 
trying  to  make  copy  out  of  their  emotions  ?  Thank 
you,  I  prefer  ruin.  If  that's  your  scoop,  you're  wel 
come  to  it." 

"  They're  not  obliged  to  see  you,"  urged  Pinney. 
"  You  send  in  your  name  and  —  " 

"  They  shut  the  door  in  your  face,  if  they  have  the 
presence  of  mind." 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  115 

"  Well !  What  do  you  care  if  they  do  ?  It's  all  in 
the  way  .of  business,  anyhow.  It's  not  a  personal 
thing." 

"  A  snub's  a  pretty  personal  thing,  Pinney.  The 
reporter  doesn't  mind  it,  but  it  makes  the  man's  face 
burn." 

"  Oh,  very  well !  If  you're  going  to  let  uncleanly 
scruples  like  that  stand  in  your  way,  you'd  better  re 
tire  to  the  poet's  corner,  and  stay  there.  You  can  fill 
that  much  space,  any  way ;  but  you  are  not  built  for 
a  reporter.  When  are  you  going  to  Boston  ?  " 

"  Six,  fifteen.     I've  got  a  scoop  of  my  own." 

"What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Pinney,  incredulously. 

"  Come  round  in  the  morning,  and  I'll  tell  you." 

"  Perhaps  I'll  go  in  with  you,  after  all.  I'll  just 
step  out  into  the  cold  air,  and  see  if  I  can  harden  my 
cheek  for  that  interview.  Your  diffidence  is  infectious, 
Maxwell." 


XIV. 

PINNEY  was  really  somewhat  dashed  by  Maxwell's 
attitude,  both  because  it  appealed  to  the  more  delicate 
and  generous  self,  which  he  was  obliged  to  pocket  so 
often  in  the  course  of  business,  and  because  it  made 
him  suspect  that  Maxwell  had  already  interviewed 
Northwick's  family.  They  would  be  forewarned,  in 
that  case,  and  would,  of  course,  refuse  to  see  him. 
But  he  felt  that  as  a  space-man,  with  the  privilege  of 
filling  all  the  space  he  chose  with  this  defalcation,  his 
duty  to  his  family  required  him  to  use  every  means 
for  making  copy. 

He  encouraged  himself  by  thinking  of  his  wife,  and 
what  she  was  probably  doing  at  that  moment  in  their 
flat  in  Boston,  and  he  was  feeling  fairly  well  when  he 
asked  for  Miss  Northwick  at  the  door  of  the  great 
wooden  palace.  He  had  time  to  take  in  its  character 
istics,  before  James,  the  inside-man,  opened  the  door 
and  scanned  him  for  a  moment  with  a  sort  of  baffled 
intelligence.  To  the  experience  of  the  inside-man  his 
appearance  gave  no  proof  that  he  was  or  was  not  an 
agent,  a  pedler  in  disguise,  or  a  genteel  mendicant 
of  the  sort  he  was  used  to  detecting  and  deterring. 

"  I  don?t  know,  sir,  I'll  go  and  see."  He  let  rather 
than  invited  Pinuey  in,  and  in  his  absence,  the  repre- 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  117 

sentative  of  the  Events  made  note  of  the  interior,  both 
of  the  hall  which  he  had  been  allowed  to  enter,  and  of 
the  library,  where  he  found  himself  upon  his  own  re 
sponsibility.  The  inside-man  discovered  him  there 
with  his  back  to  the  fire,  when  he  returned  with  his 
card  still  in  his  hand. 

"  Miss  Northwick  thinks  it's  her  father  you  wish  to 
see.  He's  not  at  home." 

"  Yes,  I  knew  that.  I  did  wish  to  see  Mr.  North- 
wick,  and  I  asked  to  see  Miss  Northwick  because  I 
knew  he  wasn't  at  home." 

"  Oh  !  "  The  man  disappeared,  and  after  another 
interval  Adeline  came  in.  She  showed  the  trepida 
tion  she  felt  at  finding  herself  in  the  presence  of  an 
interviewer. 

"  Will  you  sit  down  ?  "  she  said,  timidly,  and  she 
glanced  at  the  card  which  she  had  brought  back  this 
time.  It  bore  the  name  of  Lorenzo  A.  Pinuey,  and 
in  the  left  hand  corner  the  words  Representing  the 
Boston  Events.  Mr.  Pinney  made  haste  to  reassure 
her  by  a  very  respectful  and  business-like  straightfor 
wardness  of  manner;  he  did  not  forbid  it  a  certain 
shade  of  authority. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  disturb  you,  Miss  Northwick.  I 
hoped  to  have  some  conversation  with  you  in  regard  to 
this  —  this  rumor  —  accident.  Can  you  tell  me  just 
when  Mr.  Northwick  left  home  ?  " 

"  He  went  up  to  the  Mills,  yesterday  morning,  quite 
early,"  said  Adeline.  She  was  in  the  rise  of  hope 
which  she  and  Suzette  both  felt  from  the  mere  fact 


118          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

that  Matt  Hilary  was  on  the  way  to  hunt  the  horrible 
rumor  to  its  source ;  it  seemed  to  her  that  he  must 
extinguish  it  there.  She  wanted  to  tell  this  friendly- 
looking  reporter  so  ;  but  she  would  not  do  this  with 
out  Suzette's  authority.  Suzette  had  been  scolding 
her  for  not  telling  her  what  was  in  the  paper  as  soon 
as  she  read  it  in  the  morning ;  and  they  were  both  so 
far  respited  for  the  moment  from  their  fear,  as  to  have 
had  some  words  back  and  forth  about  the  propriety  of 
seeing  this  reporter  at  all.  Adeline  was  on  her  most 
prudent  behavior. 

"Did  you  expect  him  back  soon  when  he  left?" 
Pinney  asked  respectfully. 

"Oh,  no;  he  said  he  wouldn't  be  back  for  some 
days." 

"  It's  several  hours  to  Ponkwasset,  I  believe  ?  "  sug 
gested  Pinney. 

"  Yes,  three  or  four.  There  is  one  train,  at  half- 
past-twelve,  I  think,"  said  Miss  Northwick,  with  a 
glance  at  the  clock,  "  that  takes  you  there  in  three 
hours." 

"The  early  train  doesn't  connect  right  through, 
then  ?  " 

"  No  ;  my  father  would  have  to  wait  over  at  Spring 
field.  He  doesn't  often  take  the  early  train ;  and  so 
we  thought,  when  we  found  he  wasn't  at  the  Mills, 
that  lie  had  stopped  over  a  day  at  Springfield  to  buy 
some  horses  from  a  farmer  there.  But  we've  just 
heard  that  he  didn't.  He  may  have  run  down  to  New 
York ;  he  often  has  business  there.  We  don't  place 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  119 

any  reliance  on  that  story  " — she  gasped  the   rest  out 

—  "  about —  that  accident." 

"  Of  course  not,"  said  Pinney  with  real  sympathy. 
"  It's  just  one  of  those  flying  rumors  —  they  get  the 
names  all  mixed  up,  those  country  operators." 

"They  spelled  the  name  two  ways  in  different 
papers,"  said  Adeline.  "  Father  had  no  earthly  busi 
ness  up  that  way  ;  and  he  always  telegraphs." 

"  I  believe  the  Mills  are  on  the  line  of  the  Union 
and  Dominion  Road,  are  they  not  ?  "  Pinney  fell  into 
the  formal  style  of  his  printed  questionings. 

"  Yes,  they  are.  Father  could  get  the  Northern 
express  at  Springfield,  and  drive  over  from  Ponk- 
wasset  Junction ;  the  express  doesn't  stop  at  the 
Falls." 

"I  see.  Well,  I  won't  trouble  you  any  farther, 
Miss  Northwick.  I  hope  you'll  find  out  it's  all  a  mis 
take  about  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  know  it  is  !  "  said  Adeline.     "  A  gentleman 

—  a  friend  of  ours  —  has  just  gone  up  to  Well  water  to 
see  about  it." 

"  Oh,  well,  that's  good,"  said  Pinney.  "  Then  you'll 
soon  have  good  news.  I  suppose  you've  telegraphed  ?  " 

"  We  couldn't  get  anything  by  telegraph.  That  is 
the  reason  he  went." 

It  seemed  to  Pinney  that  she  wished  to  tell  him 
who  went;  but  she  did  not  tell  him;  and  after  wait 
ing  for  a  moment  in  vain,  he  rose  and  said,  "  Well,  I 
must  be  getting  back  to  Boston.  I  should  have  been 
up  here  to  see  your  father  about  these  labor  troubles 


120          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

night  before  last,  if  I'd  taken  my  wife's  advice.  I 
always  miss  it  when  I  don't,"  he  said,  smiling. 

There  is  no  reason  why  a  man  should  acquire  merit 
with  other  women  by  seeming  subject  to  his  wife  or 
dependent  upon  her ;  but  he  does.  They  take  it  as  a 
sort  of  tribute  to  themselves,  or  to  the  abstract  woman  ; 
their  respect  for  that  man  rises  ;  they  begin  to  honor 
him ;  their  hearts  warm  to  him.  Phmey's  devotion  to 
his  wife  had  already  been  of  great  use  to  him,  on 
several  occasions,  in  creating  an  atmosphere  of  trust 
about  him.  He  really  could  not  keep  her  out  of  his 
talk  for  more  than  five  minutes  at  a  time ;  all  topics 
led  up  to  her  sooner  or  later. 

When  he  now  rose  to  go,  Miss  Northwick  said, 
"I'm  sorry  my  father  isn't  at  home,  and  I'm  sorry  I 
can't  give  you  any  information  about  the  troubles." 

"Oh,  I  shall  go  to  the  Mills,  to-morrow,"  he  inter 
rupted  cheerily.  Her  relenting  emboldened  him  to 
say,  "You  must  have  a  beautiful  place,  here,  in  sum 
mer,  Miss  Northwick." 

"/like  it  all  times  of  the  year,"  she  answered. 
"  We've  all  been  enjoying  the  winter  so  much ;  it's 
the  first  we've  spent  here  for  a  long  time."  She  felt 
a  strange  pleasure  in  saying  this ;  her  reference  to 
their  family  life  seemed  to  reassure  her  of  its  unbroken 
continuity,  and  to  warrant  her  father's  safety. 

'•Yes,"  said  Pinney,  "I  knew  you  had  let  your 
house  in  town.  I  think  my  wife  would  feel  about  it 
just  as  you  do ;  she's  a  great  person  for  the  country, 
and  if  it  wasn't  for  my  work  on  the  paper,  I  guess  I 
sh'd  have  to  live  there." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  121 

Miss  Northwick  took  a  mass  of  heavy-headed  jacque 
minot  roses  from  the  vase  where  they  drooped  above 
the  mantel,  and  wrapping  them  in  a  paper  from  the 
desk,  stiffly  offered  them  to  Pinney.  "Won't  you 
carry  these  to  your  wife  ?  "  she  said.  This  was  not 
only  a  recognition  of  Pinney's  worth  in  being  so  fond 
of  his  wife,  but  a  vague  attempt  at  propitiation.  She 
thought  it  might  somehow  soften  the  heart  of  the 
interviewer  in  him,  and  keep  him  from  putting  any 
thing  in  the  paper  about  her.  She  was  afraid  to  ask 
him  not  to  do  so. 

"  Oh,  thank  you,"  said  Pinney.  "I  didn't  mean  to 
—  it's  very  kind  of  you  —  I  assure  you."  He  felt 
very  queer  to  be  remanded  to  the  purely  human  basis 
in  relation  to  these  people,  and  he  made  haste  to  get 
away  from  that  interview.  He  had  nothing  to  blame 
himself  for,  and  yet  he  now  suddenly  somehow  felt  to 
blame.  In  the  light  of  the  defaulter's  home  life, 
Northwick  appeared  his  victim.  Pinney  was  not  going 
to  punish  him,  he  was  merely  going  to  publish  him :  but 
ail  the  same,  for  that  moment,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  was  Northwick's  persecutor,  and  was  hunting  him 
down,  running  him  to  earth.  He  wished  that  poor 
old  girl  had  not  given  him  those  flowers  ;  he  did  not 
feel  that  he  could  take  them  to  his  wife  ;  on  the  way 
back  to  the  station  he  stepped  aside  from  the  road  and 
dropped  them  into  the  deep  snow. 

His  wife  met  him  at  the  door  of  their  flat,  eager  to 
know  what  success  he  had ;  and  at  sight  of  her  his 
spirits  rose  again,  and  he  gave  her  an  enthusiastic 
synopsis  of  what  he  had  done. 


122  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

She  flung  herself  on  his  knees,  where  he  sat,  and 
embraced  him.  "  Ren,  you've  done  splendidly  !  And 
I  know  you'll  beat  the  Abstract  clear  out  of  sight.  Oh, 
Ren,  Ren !  "  She  threw  her  arms  round  his  neck 
again,  and  the  happy  tears  started  to  her  eyes.  "  This 
will  give  you  any  place  on  the  paper  you  choose  to 
ask  for !  Oh,  I'm  the  happiest  girl  in  the  world." 

Pinney  gave  her  a  joyful  hug.  "  Yes,  it's  all  right. 
There  are  ninety-nine  chances  to  one  that  he  was 
going  to  Canada.  There's  a  big  default,  running  up 
into  the  hundred  thousands,  and  they  gave  him  a 
chance  to  make  up  his  shortage  —  it's  the  old  story. 
I've  got  just  the  setting  I  wanted  for  my  facts,  and 
now,  as  soon  as  Manton  gives  us  the  word  to  go 
ahead  — " 

"  Wait  till  Manton  gives  the  word !  "  cried  Mrs. 
Pinney.  "  Well,  you  shall  do  no  such  thing,  Ren. 
We  won't  wait  a  minute." 

Pinney  broke  out  into  a  laugh,  and  gave  her  another 
hug  for  her  enthusiasm,  and  explained,  between  laugh 
ing  at  her  and  kissing  her,  why  he  had  to  wait ;  that 
if  he  used  the  matter  before  the  detective  authorized 
him,  it  would  be  the  last  tip  he  would  ever  get  from 
Manton.  "  We  shan't  lose  anything.  I'm  going  to 
commence  writing  it  out,  now.  I'm  going  to  make 
it  a  work  of  art.  Now,  you  go  and  get  me  some  cof 
fee,  Hat.  There  isn't  going  to  be  any  let  up  on  this 
till  it's  all  blocked  out,  any  way ;  and  I'm  going  to 
leave  mighty  few  places  to  fill  in,  I  can  tell  you."  He 
pulled  off  his  coat,  and  sat  down  at  his  desk. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  123 

His  wife  stopped  him.  "  You'd  better  come  out 
into  the  kitchen,  and  work  on  the  table  there.  It's 
bigger  than  this  desk." 

"  Don't  know  but  I  had,"  said  Pinney.  He 
gathered  up  his  work  and  followed  her  out  into  the 
cosy  little  kitchen,  where  she  cooked  their  simple 
meals,  and  they  ate  them.  "  Been  living  on  tea  since 
I  been  gone  ? "  He  pulled  open  the  refrigerator 
built  into  the  wall,  and  glanced  into  it.  "  Last  night's 
dinner  all  there  yet !  " 

"  You  know  I  don't  care  to  eat  when  you're  away, 
Ren,"  she  said,  with  a  pathetic  little  mouth. 

Pinney  kissed  her  and  then  he  sat  down  to  his  work 
again ;  and  when  he  was  tired  with  writing,  his  wife 
took  the  pen  and  wrote  from  his  dictation.  As  they 
wrought  on,  they  lost  the  sense,  if  they  ever  had  it, 
of  a  fellow  creature  inside  of  the  figure  of  a  spectacu 
lar  defaulter  which  grew  from  their  hands ;  and  they 
enjoyed  the  impersonality  which  enables  us  to  judge 
and  sentence  one  another  in  this  world,  and  to  do  jus 
tice,  as  we  say.  It  is  true  that  Pinney,  having  seen 
Northwick's  home,  and  faced  his  elderly,  invalid 
daughter,  was  moved  to  use  him  with  a  leniency  which 
he  would  not  otherwise  have  felt.  He  recognized  a 
merit  in  this  forbearance  of  his,  and  once,  towards  the 
end  of  his  work,  when  he  was  taking  a  little  rest,  he 
said :  "  Reporters  get  as  much  abuse  as  plumbers  ;  but 
if  people  only  knew  what  we  kept  back,  perhaps  they 
would  sing  a  different  tune.  Of  course,  it's  a  tempta 
tion  to  describe  his  daughter,  poor  old  thing,  and  give 


124  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

the  interview  in  full,  but  I  don't  quite  like  to.  I've 
got  to  cut  it  down  to  the  fact  that  she  evidently  hadn't 
the  least  idea  of  the  defalcation,  or  why  he  was  on  the 
way  to  Canada.  Might  work  a  little  pathos  in  with 
that,  but  I  guess  I  mustn't !  " 

His  wife  pushed  the  manuscript  away  from  her,  and 
flung  down  the  pen.  "  Well,  Ren,  if  you  go  on  talk 
ing  in  that  way,  you'll  take  the  pleasure  out  of  it  for 
me  ;  I  can  tell  you  that  much.  If  I  get  to  thinking 
of  his  family,  I  can't  help  you  any  more." 

"  Pshaw  !  "  said  Pinney.  "  The  facts  have  got  to 
come  out,  any  way,  and  I  guess  they  won't  be  handled 
half  as  mercifully  anywhere  else  as  I  shall  handle 
'em."  He  put  his  arms  round  her,  and  pulled  her 
tight  up  to  him.  "Your  tender-heartedness  is  going 
to  be  the  ruiii  of  me  yet,  Hat.  If  it  hadn't  been  for 
thinking  how  you'd  have  felt,  I  should  gone  right  up 
to  Wellwater,  and  looked  up  that  accident,  myself,  on 
the  ground.  But  I  knew  you'd  go  all  to  pieces,  if  I 
wasn't  back  at  the  time  I  said,  and  so  I  didn't  go." 

"  Oh,  what  a  story ! "  said  the  young  wife,  fondly, 
with  her  adoring  eyes  upon  him.  "  I  shouldn't  have 
cared,  I  guess,  if  you'd  never  come  back." 

"  Shouldn't  you  ?  How  many  per  cent  of  that  am 
I  going  to  believe  ?  "  he  asked,  and  he  drew  her  to 
him  again  in  a  rapture  with  her  pretty  looks,  and  the 
love  he  saw  in  them. 

Pinney  was  a  handsome  little  fellow  himself,  with 
a  gay  give-and-take  air  that  had  always  served  him 
well  with  women,  and  that,  as  his  wife  often  told  him, 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  125 

had  made  lier  determine  to  have  him  the  first  time  she 
saw  him. 

This  was  at  the  opening  of  the  Promontory  House, 
two  summers  before,  when  Pinney  was  assigned  to 
write  the  affair  up  for  the  Events.  She  had  got  her  first 
place  as  operator  in  the  new  hotel ;  and  he  brought  in 
a  despatch  for  her  to  send  to  Boston  just  as  she  was 
going  to  shut  up  the  office  for  the  night,  and  go  in  to 
see  the  dancing  in  the  main  dining-room,  and  perhaps 
be  asked  to  dance  herself  by  some  of  the  clerks. 

At  the  sound  of  a  pencil  tapping  on  the  ledge  of  the 
little  window  in  the  cast-iron  filagree  wall  of  her  den, 
she  turned  quickly  round  ready  to  cry  with  disappoint 
ment  ;  but  at  sight  of  Pinney  with  his  blue  eyes,  and 
his  brown  fringe  of  moustache  curling  closely  in  over 
his  lip,  under  his  short,  straight  nose,  and  a  funny 
cleft  in  his  chin,  she  felt  more  like  laughing,  somehow, 
as  she  had  since  told  him  a  hundred  times.  He  wrote 
back  to  her  from  Boston,  on  some  pretended  business ; 
and  they  began  to  correspond,  as  they  called  it ;  and 
they  were  engaged  before  the  summer  was  over.  They 
had  never  yet  tired  of  talking  about  that  first  meeting, 
or  of  talking  about  themselves  and  each  other  in  any 
aspect.  They  found  out,  as  soon  as  they  were  en 
gaged,  and  that  sort  of  social  splendor  which  young 
people  wear  to  each  other's  eyes  had  passed,  that  they 
were  both  rather  simple  and  harmless  folks,  and  they 
began  to  value  each  other  as  being  good.  This  ten 
dency  only  grew  upon  them  with  the  greater  intimacy 
of  marriage.  The  chief  reason  for  thinking  that  they 


126  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

were  good  was  that  they  loved  each  other  so  much ; 
she  knew  that  he  was  good  because  he  loved  her ;  and 
he  believed  that  he  must  have  a  great  deal  of  good  in 
him,  if  such  a  girl  loved  him  so  much.  They  thought 
it  a  virtue  to  exist  solely  for  one  another  as  they  did ; 
their  mutual  devotion  seemed  to  them  a  form  of  un 
selfishness.  They  felt  it  a  great  merit  to  be  frugal 
and  industrious  that  they  might  prosper ;  they  pros 
pered  solely  to  their  own  advantage,  but  the  advan 
tage  of  persons  so  deserving  through  their  frugality 
and  industry  seemed  a  kind  of  altruism  ;  it  kept  them 
in  constant  good  humor  with  themselves,  and  content 
with  each  other.  They  had  risked  a  great  deal  in 
getting  married  on  Pinney's  small  salary,  but  appar 
ently  their  courage  had  been  rewarded,  and  they  were 
not  finally  without  the  sense  that  their  happiness  had 
been  achieved  somehow  in  the  public  interest. 


XV. 

MAXWELL'S  headache  went  off  after  his  cup  of  tea, 
but  when  he  reached  the  house  in  Clover  Street,  where 
he  had  a  room  in  the  boarding-house  his  mother  kept, 
he  was  so  tired  that  he  wanted  to  go  to  bed.  He  told 
her  he  was  not  tired ;  only  disappointed  with  his  after 
noon's  work. 

"  I  didn't  get  very  much.  Why,  of  course,  there 
was  a  lot  of  stuff  lying  round  in  the  gutters  that  I  can 
work  up,  if  I  have  the  stomach  for  it.  You'll  see  it 
in  Pinney's  report,  whether  I  do  it  or  not.  Pinney 
thinks  it's  all  valuable  material.  I  left  him  there 
interviewing  the  defaulter's  family,  and  making  mate 
rial  out  of  their  misery.  I  couldn't  do  that." 

"  I  shouldn't  want  you  to,  Brice,"  said  his  mother. 
"  I  couldn't  bear  to  have  you." 

"  Well,  we're  wrong,  both  of  us,  from  one  point  of 
view,"  said  the  young  fellow.  "  As  Pinney  says,  it's 
business  to  do  these  things,  and  a  business  motive 
ought  to  purify  and  ennoble  any  performance.  Pin 
ney  is  getting  to  be  a  first-class  reporter ;  he'll  be  a 
managing  editor  and  an  owner,  and  be  refusing  my 
work  in  less  than  ten  years." 

"I  hope  you'll  be  out  of  such  work  long  before 
that,"  said  the  mother. 

o 


128  THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY. 

"  I'm  likely  to  be  out  of  all  kinds  of  work  before 
that,  if  I  keep  on  at  this  gait.  Pinney  hasn't  got  the 
slightest  literary  instinct :  he's  a  wood-chopper,  a  sta 
ble-boy  by  nature ;  but  he  knows  how  to  make  copy, 
and  he's  sure  to  get  on." 

"  Well,  you  don't  want  to  get  on  in  his  way,"  the 
mother  urged  soothingly. 

"  Yes ;  but  I've  got  to  get  on  in  his  way  while  I'm 
trying  to  get  on  in  my  own.  I've  got  to  work  eight 
hours  at  reporting  for  the  privilege  of  working  two  at 
literature.  That's  how  the  world  is  built.  The  first 
thing  is  to  earn  your  bread." 

"  Well,  you  do  earn  yours,  my  son  —  and  no  one 
works  harder  to  earn  it." 

"  Ah,  but  it's  so  damned  dirty  when  I've  earned  it." 

"  Oh,  my  son  !  " 

"  Well,  I  won't  swear  at  it.  That's  stupid,  too  ;  as 
stupid  as  all  the  rest."  He  rose  from  the  chair  he 
had  dropped  into,  and  went  toward  the  door  of  the 
next  room.  "  I  must  beautify  my  person  with  a  clean 
collar  and  cuffs.  I'm  going  down  to  make  a  call  on 
the  Back  Bay,  and  I  wish  to  leave  a  good  impression 
with  the  fellow  that  shows  me  the  door  when  he  finds 
out  who  I  am  and  what  I  want.  I'm  going  to  inter 
view  Mr.  Hilary  on  the  company's  feelings  towards 
their  absconding  treasurer.  What  a  dose!  He'll 
never  know  I  hate  it  ten  times  as  bad  as  he  does. 
But  it's  my  only  chance  for  a  scoop." 

"I'm  sure  he'll  receive  you  well,  Brice.  He  must 
see  that  you're  a  gentleman." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  129 

"  No,  I'm  not  a  gentleman,  mother,"  the  son  inter 
rupted  harshly  from  the  room  where  he  was  modifying 
his  linen.  u  I'm  not  in  that  line  of  business.  But 
I'm  like  most  people  in  most  other  lines  of  business  :  I 
intend  to  be  a  gentleman  as  soon  as  I  can  afford  it.  I 
shall  have  to  pocket  myself  as  usual,  when  I  interview 
Mr.  Hilary.  Perhaps  he  isn't  a  gentleman,  either. 
There's  some  consolation  in  that.  I  should  like  to 
write  an  article  some  day  on  business  methods  and 
their  compatibility  with  self-respect.  But  Mr.  Ricker 
wouldn't  print  it." 

"  He's  very  kind  to  you,  Brice." 

"  Yes,  he's  as  kind  as  he  dares  to  be.  He's  the 
oasis  in  the  desert  of  my  life  ;  but  the  counting-room 
simoom  comes  along  and  dries  him  up,  every  now  and 
then.  Suppose  I  began  my  article  by  a  study  of  the 
counting-room  in  independent  journalism  ?  " 

Mrs.  Maxwell  had  nothing  to  say  to  this  suggestion, 
but  much  concerning  the  necessity  of  wearing  the 
neck-muffler,  which  she  found  her  son  had  not  had  on 
all  day.  She  put  it  on  for  him  now,  and  made  him 
promise  to  put  it  on  for  himself  when  he  left  the  house 
where  he  was  going  to  call. 

The  man  who  came  to  the  door  told  him  that  Mr. 
Hilary  was  not  at  home,  but  was  expected  shortly,  arid 
consented  to  let  him  come  in  and  wait.  He  tried  to 
classify  Maxwell  in  deciding  where  to  let  him  wait ; 
his  coat  and  hat  looked  like  a  chair  in  the  hall ;  his 
pale,  refined,  rather  haughty  face,  like  the  drawing- 
room.  The  man  compromised  on  the  library,  and  led 
him  in  there. 


130  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

Louise  rose  upright  on  the  lounge,  where  she  had 
thrown  herself,  after  dinner,  to  rest,  in  the  dim  light, 
and  think  over  the  clay's  strange  experience,  and 
stared  at  him  helplessly.  For  her  greater  ease  and 
comfort,  she  had  pushed  off  her  shoes,  and  they  had 
gone  over  the  foot  of  the  lounge.  She  found  herself 
confronted  with  the  contumacious-looking  workman 
she  had  noticed  at  the  station  in  Hatboro',  with  those 
thin,  mocking  lips,  and  the  large,  dreamy  eyes  that 
she  remembered. 

The  serving-man  said,  "  Oh,  I  didn't  know  you 
were  here,  Miss,"  and  stood  irresolute.  "  The  gentle 
man  wishes  to  see  your  father." 

"  "Will  you  sit  down  ?  "  she  said  to  Maxwell.  "  My 
father  will  be  in  very  soon,  I  think."  She  began  to 
wonder  whether  she  could  edge  along  unobserved  to 
where  her  shoes  lay,  and  slip  her  feet  into  them.  But 
for  the  present  she  remained  wrhere  she  was,  and  not 
merely  because  her  shoes  were  off  and  she  could  not 
well  get  away,  but  because  it  was  not  in  her  nature 
not  to  wish  every  one  to  be  happy  and  comfortable. 
She  was  as  far  as  any  woman  can  be  from  coquetry, 
but  she  could  not  see  any  manner  of  man  without  try 
ing  to  please  him.  "  I'm  sorry  he's  isn't  here,"  she 
said,  and  then,  as  there  seemed  nothing  for  him  to 
answer,  she  ventured,  "  It's  very  cold  out,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  It's  grown  colder  since  night-fall,"  said  Maxwell. 

He  remembered  her  and  she  saw  that  he  did,  and 
this  somehow  promoted  an  illogical  sense  of  acquaint 
ance  with  him. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          131 

"  It  seems,"  she  ventured  farther,  "  very  unusual 
weather  for  the  beginning  of  February." 

"  Why,  I  don't  know,"  said  Maxwell,  with  rather 
more  self-possession  than  she  wished  him  to  have,  so 
soon.  "  I  think  we're  apt  to  have  very  cold  weather 
after  the  January  thaw." 

"  That's  true,"  said  Louise,  with  inward  wonder 
that  she  had  riot  thought  of  it.  His  self-possession 
did  not  comport  with  his  threadbare  clothes  any  more 
than  his  neat  accent  and  quiet  tone  comported  with 
the  proletarian  character  she  had  assigned  him.  She 
decided  that  he  must  be  a  walking-delegate,  and  that 
he  had  probably  come  on.  mischief  from  some  of  the 
workpeople  in  her  father's  employ ;  she  had  never 
seen  a  walking-delegate  before,  but  she  had  heard 
much  dispute  between  her  father  and  brother  as  to  his 
usefulness  in  society ;  and  her  decision  gave  Maxwell 
fresh  interest  in  her  mind.  Before  he  knew  who 
Louise  was,  he  had  made  her  represent  the  million- 
naire's  purse-pride,  because  he  found  her  in  Hilary's 
house,  and  because  he  had  hated  her  for  a  swell,  as 
much  as  a  young  man  can  hate  a  pretty  woman,  when 
he  saw  her  walking  up  and  down  the  platform  at 
Hatboro'.  He  looked  about  the  rich  man's  library 
with  a  scornful  recognition  of  its  luxury.  His  disdain, 
which  was  purely  dramatic,  and  had  no  personal  direc 
tion,  began  to  scare  Louise ;  she  wanted  to  go  away, 
but  even  if  she  could  get  to  her  shoes  without  his  no 
ticing,  she  could  not  get  them  on  without  making  a 
scraping  noise  on  the  hard-wood  floor.  She  did  not 


132          THE  QUALITY  OK  MERCY. 

know  what  to  say  next,  and  her  heart  warmed  with 
gratitude  to  Maxwell  when  he  said,  with  no  great  rele 
vancy  to  what  they  had  been  saying,  but  with  much 
to  what  he  had  in  mind,  "  I  don't  think  one  realizes 
the  winter,  except  in  the  country." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  one  forgets  how  lovely  it  is  out 
of  town." 

"  And  how  dreary,"  he  added. 

"  Oh,  do  you  feel  that?  "  she  asked,  and  she  said  to 
herself,  "  We  shall  be  debating  whether  summer  is 
pleasanter  than  winter,  if  we  keep  on  at  this  rate." 

"Yes,  I  think  so,"  said  Maxwell.  He  looked  at  a 
picture  over  the  mantel,  to  put  himself  at  greater 
ease,  and  began  to  speak  of  it,  of  the  color  and  draw 
ing.  She  saw  that  he  knew  nothing  of  art,  and  felt 
only  the  literary  quality  of  the  picture,  and  she  was 
trying  compassionately  to  get  the  talk  away  from  it, 
when  she  heard  her  father's  step  in  the  hall  below. 

Hilary  gave  a  start  of  question,  when  he  looked 
into  the  library,  that  brought  Maxwell  to  his  feet. 
"  Mr.  Hilary,  I'm  connected  with  the  Daily  Abstract, 
and  I've  come  to  see  if  you  are  willing  to  talk  with  me 
about  this  rumored  accident  to  Mr.  Northwick." 

"  No,  sir !  No,  sir !  "  Hilary  stormed  back.  "  I 
don't  know  any  more  about  the  accident,  than  you  do ! 
I  haven't  a  word  to  say  about  it.  Not  a  word  !  Not 
a  syllable  !  I  hope  that's  enough  ?  " 

"  Quite,"  said  Maxwell,  and  with  a  slight  bow  to 
Louise,  he  went  out. 

"  Oh,  papa  !  "  Louise  moaned  out,  "  how  could  you 
treat  him  so  ?  " 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          133 

"Treat  him  so?  Why  shouldn't  I  treat  him  so? 
Confound  his  impudence !  What  does  he  mean  by 
thrusting  himself  in  here  and  taking  possession  of  my 
library  ?  Why  didn't  he  wait  in  the  hall  ?  " 

"  Patrick  showed  him  in  here.  He  saw  that  he 
was  a  gentleman ! " 

"  Saw  that  he  was  a  gentleman  ?  " 

"  Yes,  certainly.  He  is  very  cultivated.  He's  not 
—  not  a  common  reporter  at  all!  "  Louise's  voice 
trembled  with  mortification  for  her  father,  and  pity 
for  Maxwell,  as  she  adventured  this  assertion  from 
no  previous  experience  of  reporters.  It  was  shocking 
to  feel  that  it  was  her  father  who  had  not  been  the 
gentleman.  "You  —  you  might  have  been  a  little 
kinder,  papa ;  he  wasn't  at  all  obtrusive  ;  and  he  only 
asked  you  whether  you  would  say  anything.  He 
didn't  persist." 

"I  didn't  intend  he  should  persist,"  said  Hilary. 
His  fire  of  straw  always  burnt  itself  out  in  the  first 
blaze  ;  it  was  uncomfortable  to  find  himself  at  vari 
ance  with  his  daughter,  who  was  usually  his  fond  and 
admiring  ally  ;  but  he  could  not  give  up  at  once.  "  If 
you  didn't  like  the  way  I  treated  him,  why  did  you 
stay  ?  "  he  demanded.  "  Was  it  necessary  for  you  to 
entertain  him  till  I  came  in  ?  Did  he  ask  for  the 
family  ?  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  " 

The  tears  came  into  her  eyes,  and  she  said  with  in 
dignant  resentment :  "  Patrick  didn't  know  I  was  here 
when  he  brought  him  in  ;  I'm  sure  I  should  have  been 
glad  to  go,  when  you  began  raging  at  him,  papa,  if  I 


134          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

could.  It  wasn't  very  pleasant  to  hear  you.  I  won't 
come  any  more,  if  you  don't  want  me  to.  I  thought 
you  liked  me  to  be  here.  You  said  you  did." 

Her  father  blustered  back  :  "  Don't  talk  nonsense. 
You'll  come,  just  as  you  always  have.  I  suppose,"  he 
added,  after  a  moment,  in  which  Louise  gathered  up 
her  shoes,  and  stood  with  them  in  one  hand  behind 
her,  a  tall  figure  of  hurt  affection  and  wounded  pride, 
"  I  suppose  I  might  have  been  a  little  smoother  with 
the  fellow,  but  I've  had  twenty  reporters  after  me  to 
day,  and  between  them,  and  you,  and  Matt,  in  all  this 
bother,  I  hardly  know  what  I'm  about.  Didn't  Matt 
see  that  his  going  to  Wellvvater  in  behalf  of  North- 
wick's  family  must  involve  me  more  and  more  ?  " 

"I  don't  see  how  he  could  help  offering  to  go, 
when  he  found  Suzette  was  going  alone.  He  couldn't 
do  less." 

"  Oh,  do  less !  "  said  Hilary,  with  imperfectly  sus 
tained  passion.  He  turned,  to  avoid  looking  at  Louise, 
and  his  eyes  fell  on  a  strange-looking  note-book  on  the 
table  where  Maxwell  had  sat.  "  What's  this  ?  " 

He  took  it  up,  and  Louise  said,  "  He  must  have  left 
it."  And  she  thought,  "  Of  course  he  will  come  back 
for  it." 

"  Well,  I  must  send  it  to  him.  And  I'll  —  I'll 
write  him  a  note,"  Hilary  groaned. 

Louise  smiled  eager  forgiveness.  "  He  seemed  very 
intelligent,  poor  fellow,  in  some  ways.  Didn't  you 
notice  what  a  cultivated  tone  he  had?  It's  shocking 

O 

to  think  of  his  having  to  go  about  and  interview  peo 
ple,  and  meet  all  kinds  of  rebuffs." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  135 

"  I  guess  you'd  better  not  waste  too  much  sympathy 
on  him,"  said  Hilary,  with  some  return  to  his  grudge. 

"  Oh,  I  didn't  mean  you,  papa,"  said  Louise,  sweetly. 

The  door-bell  rang,  and  after  some  parley  at  the 
threshold,  Patrick  came  up  to  say,  "  The  gentleman 
that  was  just  here  thinks  he  left  his  note-book,  he  —  " 

Hilary  did  not  let  him  get  the  words  out;  "Oh, 
yes,  show  him  up !  Here  it  is."  He  ran  half  down 
the  stairs  himself  to  meet  Maxwell. 


XVI. 

LOUISE  stole  a  glance  at  herself  across  the  room  in 
the  little  triptych  mirror  against  one  of  the  shelves. 
Her  hair  was  not  tumbled,  and  she  completed  her 
toilet  to  the  eye  by  dropping  her  shoes  and  extending 
the  edge  of  her  skirt  over  them  where  she  stood. 

Her  father  brought  Maxwell  in  by  the  door,  and 
she  smiled  a  fresh  greeting  to  him.  "We  —  I  had 
just  picked  your  note-book  up.  I  —  I'm  glad  you 
came  back,  I  —  was  a  little  short  with  you  a  mo 
ment  ago.  I  —  I  —  Mayn't  I  offer  you  a  cigar  ?  " 

"  No,  thanks.     I  don't  smoke,"  said  Maxwell. 

"  Then  a  glass  of  —      It's  pretty  cold  out  !  " 

"  Thank  you  ;    I  never  drink." 

"  Well,  that's  good !  That's  —  sit  down  ;  sit  down ! 
—  that's  a  very  good  thing.  I  assure  you,  I  don't 
think  it's  the  least  use,  though  I  do  both.  My  boy 
doesn't,  he's  a  pattern  to  his  father." 

In  spite  of  Hilary's  invitation  Maxwell  remained  on 
foot,  with  the  effect  of  merely  hearing  him  out  as  he 
went  on. 

"I  —  I'm  sorry  I  haven't  anything  to  tell  about 
that  accident.  I've  been  telegraphing  all  day,  with 
out  finding  out  anything  beyond  the  fact  as  first  re 
ported  ;  and  now  my  son's  gone  up  to  Well  water,  to 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          137 

look  it  up  on  the  ground.  It  may  have  been  our  Mr. 
Northwick,  or  it  may  not.  May  I  ask  how  much  you 
know  ?  " 

"I  don't  know  that  I'm  quite   free   to  say,"  an 
swered  Maxwell. 

"  Oh !  " 

"  And  I  didn't  expect  you  to  say  anything  unless 
you  wished  to  make  something  known.  It's  a  matter 
of  business." 

"Exactly,"  said  Hilary.  "But  I  think  I  might 
been  a  little  civiller  in  saying  what  I  did.  The  ru 
mor's  been  a  great  annoyance  to  me  ;  and  I  like  to 
share  my  annoyances  with  other  people.  I  suppose 
your  business  often  brings  you  in  contact  with  men  of 
that  friendly  disposition?  Heigh?"  Hilary  rolled 
the  cigar  he  was  about  to  light  between  his  lips. 

"  We  see  the  average  man,"  said  Maxwell,  not  at 
all  flattered  from  his  poise  by  Hilary's  apologies.  "  It's 
a  bore  to  be  interviewed  ;  I  know  that  from  the  bore  it 
is  to  interview." 

"  I  dare  say  that's  often  the  worst  part  of  it,"  said 
Hilary,  lighting  his  cigar,  and  puffing  out  the  first 
great  clouds.  "  Well,  then,  I  may  congratulate  my 
self  on  sparing  you  an  unpleasant  duty.  I  didn't 
know  I  should  come  off  so  handsomely." 

There  seemed  nothing  more  to  say,  and  Maxwell 
did  not  attempt  to  make  conversation.  Hilary  offered 
him  his  hand,  and  he  said,  as  if  to  relieve  the  parting 
of  abruptness,  "If  you  care  to  look  in  on  me  again, 
later  on,  perhaps  —  " 


138  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Maxwell,  and  he  turned  to  go. 
Then  he  turned  back,  and  after  a  moment's  hesitation, 
bowed  to  Louise,  and  said  very  stiffly,  "  Good-even 
ing  !  "  and  went  out. 

Louise  fetched  a  deep  breath.  "Why  didn't  you 
keep  him  longer,  papa,  and  find  out  all  about  him?  " 

"  I  think  we  know  all  that's  necessary,"  said  her 
father,  dryly.  "  At  least  he  isn't  on  my  conscience 
any  longer  ;  and  now  I  hope  you're  satisfied." 

"  Yes  —  yes,"  she  hesitated.  "  You  don't  think  you 
were  too  patronizing  in  your  reparation,  papa  ?  " 

"  Patronizing  ?  "     Hilary's  crest  began  to  rise. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  that ;  but  I  wish  you  hadn't  let 
him  see  that  you  expected  him  to  leap  for  joy  when 
you  stooped  to  excuse  yourself." 

Hila-ry  delayed,  for  want  of  adequate  terms,  the  vio 
lence  he  was  about  to  permit  himself.  "  The  next 
time,  if  you  don't  like  my  manner  with  people,  don't 
stay,  Louise." 

"  I  knew  you  wanted  me  to  stay,  papa,  to  see  how 
beautifully  you  could  do  it ;  and  you  did  do  it  beauti 
fully.  It  was  magnificent  —  perhaps  too  magnifi 
cent."  She  began  to  laugh  and  to  kiss  away  the 
vexation  from  her  father's  face,  keeping  her  hands 
behind  her  with  her  shoes  she  had  picked  up  again,  in 
them,  as  she  came  and  leaned  over  him,  where  he  sat. 

"And  did  I  want  you  to  stay  and  entertain  him 
here  till  I  came  in  ?  "  he  demanded,  to  keep  from  being 
mollified  too  soon. 

"  No,"  she  faltered.     "  That  was  a  work  of  neces- 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  139 

sity.  He  looked  so  sick  and  sad,  that  he  appealed  to 
my  sympathy,  and  besides  —  Do  you  think  I  could 
trust  you  with  a  secret,  papa  ?  " 

"What  are  you  talking  about?  " 

"Why,  you  see  I  thought  he  was  a  walking-dele 
gate  at  first." 

"And  was  that  the  reason  you  stayed  ?  " 

"  No.  That  was  what  frightened  me,  and  then  in 
terested  me.  I  wanted  to  find  out  what  they  were 
like.  But  that  isn't  the  secret." 

"  It's  probably  quite  as  important,"  Hilary  growled. 

"  Well,  you  see  it's  such  a  good  lesson  to  me  !  I 
had  slipped  off  my  shoes  when  I  was  lying  down,  and 
I  couldn't  get  away,  he  came  in  so  suddenly." 

"And  do  you  mean  to  tell  me,  Louise,  that  you 
were  talking  to  that  reporter  all  the  time  in  —  " 

"  How  should  he*  know  it  ?  You  didn't  know  it 
yourself,  papa.  I  couldn't  get  my  shoes  on  after  he 
came,  of  course !  "  She  brought  them  round  before 
her  in  evidence. 

"  Well,  it's  scandalous,  Louise,  simply  scandalous ! 
I  never  come  in  after  you've  been  here  without  find 
ing  some  part  of  your  gear  lying  round  —  hair-pins,  or 
gloves,  or  ribbons,  or  belts,  or  handkerchiefs,  or  some 
thing —  and  I  won't  have  it.  I  want  you  to  understand 
that  I  think  it's  disgraceful.  I'm  ashamed  of  you." 

"  Oh,  no !     Not  ashamed,  papa ! " 

"Yes,  I  am!  "  said  her  father;  but  he  had  to  relent 
under  her  look  of  meek  imploring,  and  say,  "or  I 
ought  to  be.  I  don't  see  how  you  could  hold  up  your 
head." 


140  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  I  held  it  very  high  up.  When  you  haven't  got 
your  shoes  on  — in  company  —  it  gives  you  a  sort  of 
—  internal  majesty  ;  and  I  behaved  very  loftily.  But 
it's  been  a  fearful  lesson  to  me,  papa !  "  She  made 
her  father  laugh,  and  then  she  flung  herself  upon  him, 
and  kissed  him  for  his  amiability. 

She  said  at  the  end  of  this  rite,  "  He  didn't  seem 
much  impressed  even  after  you  had  apologized,  do  you 
think,  papa?  " 

"  No,  he  didn't,"  Hilary  grumbled.  "  He's  as  stiff- 
necked  as  need  be." 

"Yes,"  said  Louise,  thoughtfully.  "He  must  be 
proud.  How  funny  proud  people  are,  papa  !  I  can't 
understand  them.  That  was  what  always  fascinated 
me  with  Suzette." 

Hilary's  face  saddened  as  it  softened.  "Ah,  poor 
thing!  She'll  have  need  of  all  her  pride,  now." 

"  You  mean  about  her  father,"  said  Louise,  sobered 
too.  "  Don't  you  hope  he's  got  away  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  mean,  child  ?  That  would  be  a 
very  rascally  wish  in  me." 

"  Well,  you'd  rather  he  had  got  away  than  been 
killed  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course,  of  course,"  Hilary  ruefully  as 
sented.  "  But  if  Matt  finds  he  wasn't  —  in  the  acci 
dent,  it's  my  business  to  do  all  I  can  to  bring  him  to 
justice.  The  man's  a  thief." 

"  Well,  then,  /hope  he's  got  away." 

"  You  mustn't  say  such  things,  Louise." 

"  Oh,  no,  papa !     Only  think  them." 


XVII. 

HILARY  had  to  yield  to  the  pressure  on  him  and 
send  detectives  to  look  into  the  question  of  North- 
wick's  fate  at  the  scene  of  the  accident.  It  was  a 
formal  violation  of  his  promise  to  Northwick  that  he 
should  have  three  days  unmolested ;  but  perhaps  the 
circumstances  would  have  justified  Hilary  to  any  busi 
ness  man,  and  it  could  really  matter  nothing  to  the 
defaulter  dead  or  alive.  In  either  case  he  was  out  of 
harm's  way.  Matt,  all  the  same,  felt  the  ghastliness 
of  being  there  on  the  same  errand  with  these  agents 
of  his  father,  and  reaching  the  same  facts  with  them. 
At  moments  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  were  tacitly 
working  in  agreement  with  them,  for  the  same  pur 
pose  as  well  as  to  the  same  end  ;  but  he  would  not  let 
this  illusion  fasten  upon  him ;  and  he  kept  faith  with 
Suzette  in  the  last  degree.  He  left  nothing  undone 
which  she  could  have  asked  if  he  had  done  ;  he  in 
vented  some  quite  useless  things  to  do,  and  did  them, 
to  give  his  conscience  no  cause  against  him  afterwards. 
The  fire  had  left  nothing  but  a  few  charred  fragments 
of  the  wreck.  There  had  been  no  means  of  stopping 
it,  and  it  had  almost  completely  swept  away  the  cars 
in  which  it  had  broken  out.  Certain  of  the  cars  to 
the  windward  were  not  burnt ;  these  lay  capsized  be- 


142  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

side  the  track,  bent  and  twisted,  and  burst  athwart, 
fantastically  like  the  pictures  of  derailed  cars  as  Matt 
had  seen  them  in  the  illustrated  papers ;  the  locomo 
tive,  pitched  into  a  heavy  drift,  was  like  some  dead 
monster  that  had  struggled  hard  for  its  life.  Where 
the  fire  had  raged,  there  was  a  wide  black  patch  in  the 
whiteness  glistening  everywhere  else  ;  there  were 
ashes,  and  writhen  iron-work;  and  bits  of  charred 
wood-wrork ;  but  nothing  to  tell  who  or  how  many  had 
died  there.  It  was  certain  that  the  porter  and  the 
parlor-car  conductor  were  among  the  lost ;  and  his  list 
of  passengers  had  perished  with  the  conductor  ;  there 
was  only  left  with  the  operator  the  original  of  that 
telegram,  asking  to  have  a  chair  reserved  in  the  Pull 
man  from  Wellwater,  and  signed  with  Northwick's 
name,  but  those  different  initials,  which  had  given 
rise  to  the  report  of  his  death. 

This  was  the  definite  fact  which  Matt  could  carry 
back  with  him  to  Northwick's  family,  and  this  they 
knew  already.  It  settled  nothing;  it  left  the  ques 
tion  of  his  death  just  where  it  was  before.  But  Matt 
struggled  with  it  as  if  it  were  some  quite  new  thing, 
and  spent  himself  in  trying  to  determine  how  he 
should  present  it  to  them.  In  his  own  mind  he  had 
very  great  doubt  whether  Northwick  was  in  the  acci 
dent,  and  whether  that  dispatch  was  not  a  trick,  a  ruse 
to  cover  up  the  real  course  of  his  flight.  But  then 
there  was  no  sense  in  his  trying  to  hide  his  track,  for 
he  must  have  known  that  as  yet  there  was  no  pursuit. 
If  the  telegram  was  a  ruse,  it  was  a  ruse  to  conceal 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  143 

the  fact  that  Northwick  was  still  in  the  country,  and 
had  not  gone  to  Canada  at  all.  But  Matt  could  not 
imagine  any  reason  for  such  a  ruse ;  the  motive  must 
be  one  of  those  illogical  impulses  which  sometimes 
govern  criminals.  In  any  case,  Matt  could  not  impart 
his  conjectures  to  the  poor  women  who  must  be  await 
ing  his  return  with  such  cruel  anxiety.  If  the  man 
were  really  dead,  it  would  simplify  the  matter  beyond 
the  power  of  any  other  fact ;  Matt  perceived  how  it 
would  mitigate  the  situation  for  his  family ;  he  could 
understand  how  people  should  hold  that  suicide  was 
the  only  thing  left  for  a  man  in  Northwick's  strait. 
He  blamed  himself  for  coming  a  moment  to  that 
ground,  and  owned  the  shame  of  his  interested  motive ; 
but  it  was,  nevertheless,  a  relief  which  he  did  not 
know  how  to  refuse  when  Suzette  Northwick  took 
what  he  had  to  tell  as  final  proof  that  her  father  was 
dead. 

She  said  that  she  had  been  talking  it  all  over  with 
her  sister,  and  they  were  sure  of  it ;  they  were  pre 
pared  for  it ;  they  expected  him  to  tell  them  so. 

Matt  tried  to  have  her  realize  that  he  had  not  told 
her  so ;  and  he  urged,  as  far  as  he  could,  the  grounds 
for  hoping  that  her  father  was  not  in  the  accident. 

She  put  them  all  aside.  The  difference  in  the  ini 
tials  was  really  no  difference  ;  and  besides,  and  above 
all,  there  was  the  fact  that  if  her  father  were  anywhere 
alive,  he  must  have  seen  the  report  of  his  death  by 
this  time,  and  sent  some  word,  made  some  sign  for 

their  relief.     She  was  doubly  sure  of  this,  because  he 
10 


144  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

was  so  anxiously  thoughtful  of  them  when  they  were 
separated.  He  expected  them  to  notify  him  of  every 
slight  change  in  their  plans  when  they  were  away,  and 
always  telegraphed  as  to  his  own.  The  only  mystery 
was  his  going  to  Canada  without  letting  them  know 
his  plans  before  or  afterwards.  It  must  have  been 
upon  some  very  suddenly  urgent  business  that  took 
his  mind  off  everything  else. 

Matt  silently  hung  his  head,  dreading  lest  she  should 
ask  him  what  he  thought,  and  wondering  how  he  must 
answer  if  she  did.  He  perceived  that  he  had  no  choice 
but  to  lie,  if  she  asked  him ;  but  when  he  volunteered 
nothing,  she  did  not  ask  him. 

It  was  the  second  morning  after  he  had  left  her ; 
but  he  could  see  that  she  had  lived  long  since  their 
parting.  He  thought,  "  That  is  the  way  she  will  look 
as  she  grows  old."  The  delicate  outline  of  her  cheeks 
showed  a  slight  straightening  of  its  curve;  her  lips 
were  pinched ;  the  aquiline  jut  of  her  nose  was 
sharpened.  There  was  no  sign  of  tears  in  her  eyes  ; 
but  Adeline  wept,  and  constantly  dried  her  tears 
with  her  handkerchief.  She  accepted  her  affliction 
meekly,  as  Suzette  accepted  it  proudly,  and  she  seemed 
to  leave  all  the  conjectures  and  conclusions  to  her 
sister. 

Suzette  was  in  the  exaltation  which  death  first  brings 
to  the  bereaved,  when  people  say  that  they  do  not  real 
ize  it  yet,  and  that  they  will  feel  it  later.  Then  they 
go  about,  especially  if  they  are  women,  in  a  sort  of 
hysterical  strength ;  they  speak  calmly  of  what  has 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          145 

happened ;  they  help  those  beyond  the  immediate  cir 
cle  of  their  loss  to  bear  up  against  it ;  these  look  to 
see  them  break  suddenly  under  the  stress  of  their 
bereavement,  and  wonder  at  their  impassioned  forti 
tude. 

Matt  knew  neither  how  to  stay  nor  to  get  away ;  it 
seemed  intrusive  to  linger,  and  inhuman  to  go  when  he 
had  told  the  little  he  had  to  tell.  Suzette  had  been 
so  still,  so  cold,  in  receiving  him,  that  he  was  aston 
ished  at  her  intensity  when  he  rose  to  leave  her  at 
last. 

"  I  shall  never  forget  what  you  have  done  for  us, 
Mr.  Hilary.  Never  !  Don't  belittle  it,  or  try  to  make 
it  seem  nothing !  It  was  everything !  I  wonder  you 
could  do  it !  " 

"Yes!  "  Adeline  put  in,  as  if  they  had  been  talking 
his  kindness  over,  as  well  as  their  loss,  and  were  of 
one  mind  about  it. 

"  Oh,  indeed !  "  he  began.  "  Any  one  would  have 
done  it  —  " 

"  Don't  say  so  !  "  cried  Suzette.  "  You  think  that 
because  you  would  have  done  it  for  any  one  !  But  you 
have  done  it  for  MS  ;  and  as  long  as  I  live  I  shall  re 
member  that !  Oh  "  —  She  broke  off  ;  and  dropped 
her  face  with  a  pathetic,  childlike  helplessness  on  her 
lifted  arm ;  and  now  he  was  less  than  ever  able  to 
leave  her.  They  all  sat  down  again,  after  they  had 
risen  to  part;  Matt  felt  the  imperative  necessity  of 
encouraging  them;  of  rescuing  her  from  the  conjec 
ture  which  she  had  accepted  as  certainty.  He  was 


140  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

one  of  those  men  in  whom  passion  can  be  born  only  of 
some  form  of  unselfish  kindness ;  and  who  alone  can 
make  women  happy.  If  it  was  love  that  was  now 
stirring  so  strangely  at  his  heart,  he  did  not  know  it 
was  love ;  he  thought  it  was  still  the  pity  that  he  had 
felt  for  the  girl's  immense  calamity.  He  knew  that 
from  every  phase  of  it  he  could  not  save  her,  but  he 
tried  to  save  her  from  that  which  now  confronted 
them,  and  from  which  he  saw  her  suffering.  He  went 
over  all  the  facts  again  with  the  hapless  creatures,  and 
reasoned  from  them  the  probability  that  their  father 
was  still  alive.  It  was  respite  from  sorrow  which 
misery  must  follow ;  it  was  insane,  it  was  foolish,  it 
Was  even  guilty,  but  he  could  not  help  trying  to  win 
it  for  them ;  and  when  he  left  them  at  last,  they  were 
bright  with  the  hope  he  had  given  them,  and  which 
the  event,  whether.it  was  death  or  whether  it  was 
disgrace,  must  quench  in  a  blacker  despair. 

The  truth  of  this  rushed  upon  him  when  he  found 
himself  staggering  away  from  the  doomed  house  which 
cast  its  light  gayly  out  upon  the  snow,  and  followed 
him  with  a  perverse  sense  of  its  warmth  and  luxury 
into  the  night.  But  a  strange  joy  mixed  with  the  trouble 
in  his  soul ;  and  for  all  that  sleepless  night,  the  con 
flict  of  these  emotions  seemed  to  toss  him  to  and 
fro  as  if  he  were  something  alien  and  exterior  to 
them.  Northwick  was  now  dead,  and  his  death  had 
averted  the  disgrace  which  overhung  his  name ;  now 
he  was  still  alive,  and  his  escape  from  death  had 
righted  all  the  wrong  he  had  done.  Then  his  escape 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  147 

had  only  deepened  the  shame  he  had  fled  from ;  his 
death  had  fixed  a  stain  of  a  blood-guiltiness  on  his  mis 
deeds,  and  was  no  caprice  of  fate,  but  a  judgment  of 
the  eternal  justice.  Against  this  savage  conclusion 
Matt  rebelled,  and  made  his  stand. 


XVIII. 

FOR  forty-eight  hours  longer  the  fact  of  the  defalca 
tion  was  kept  back ;  but  then,  in  view  of  the  legal 
action  urged  by  those  who  did  not  accept  the  theory 
of  Northwick's  death,  it  had  to  come  out,  and  it  broke 
all  bounds  in  overwhelming  floods  of  publicity. 

Day  after  day  the  papers  were  full  of  the  facts,  and 
it  was  weeks  before  the  editorial  homilies  ceased. 
From  time  to  time,  fresh  details  and  unexpected  reve 
lations,  wise  guesses  and  shameless  fakes,  renewed  the 
interest  of  the  original  fact.  There  were  days  when 
there  was  nothing  about  it  in  the  papers,  and  then 
days  when  it  broke  out  in  vivid  paragraphs  and  whole 
lurid  columns  again.  It  was  not  that  the  fraud  was 
singular  in  its  features  ;  these  were  common  to  most 
of  the  defalcations,  great  and  small,  which  were  of 
daily  fame  in  the  newspapers.  But  the  doubt  as  to 
the  man's  fate,  and  the  enduring  mystery  of  his 
whereabouts,  if  he  were  still  alive,  were  qualities  that 
gave  peculiar  poignancy  to  Nortliwick's  case.  Its  re 
sults  in  the  failure  of  people  not  directly  involved, 
were  greater  than  could  have  been  expected ;  and  the 
sum  of  his  peculations  mounted  under  investigation. 
It  was  all  much  worse  than  had  been  imagined,  and 
in  most  of  the  editorial  sermons  upon  it  the  moral 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  149 

gravity  of  the  offence  was  measured  by  the  amounts 
stolen  and  indirectly  lost  by  it.  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  mere  astonishment,  as  usual,  that  the  crime 
should  have  been  that  of  a  man  whom  no  one  would 
have  dreamed  of  suspecting,  and  there  was  some  suf 
ficiently  ridiculous  consternation  at  the  presence  of 
such  moral  decay  in  the  very  heart  of  the  commercial 
life  of  Boston. 

In  the  Events,  Pinney  made  his  report  of  the  affair 
the  work  of  art  which  he  boasted  should  come  from 
his  hand.  It'  was  really  a  space-man's  masterpiece ; 
and  it  appealed  to  every  nerve  in  the  reader's  body, 
with  its  sensations  repeated  through  many  columns, 
and  continued  from  page  to  page  with  a  recurrent 
efflorescence  of  scare-heads  and  catch-lines.  In  the 
ardor  of  production,  all  scruples  and  reluctances  be 
came  fused  in  a  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  Events 
and  its  readers.  With  every  hour  the  painful  impres 
sions  of  his  interview  with  Miss  Nortliwick  grew 
fainter,  and  the  desire  to  use  it  stronger,  and  he  ended 
by  sparing  no  color  of  it.  But  he  compromised  with 
his  sympathy  for  her,  by  deepening  the  shadows  in  the 
behavior  of  the  man  who  could  bring  all  this  sorrow 
upon  those  dearest  to  him.  He  dwelt  upon  the  uncon 
sciousness  of  the  family,  the  ignorance  of  the  whole 
household,  in  which  life  ran  smoothly  on,  while  the 
head  of  both  was  a  fugitive  from  justice,  if  not  the 
victim  of  a  swift  retribution.  He  worked  in  all  the 
pathos  which  the  facts  were  capable  of  holding,  and 
at  certain  points  he  enlarged  the  capacity  of  the  facts. 


150  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

He  described  with  a,  good  deal  of  graphic  force  the 
Northwick  interior.  Under  his  touch  the  hall  ex 
panded,  the  staircase  widened  and  curved,  the  carpets 
thickened,  the  servants  multiplied,  the  library  into 
which  "  the  Events'  representative  was  politely 
ushered,"  was  furnished  with  "  all  the  appliances  of  a 
cultured  taste."  The  works  of  the  standard  authors 
in  costly  bindings  graced  its  shelves ;  magnificent 
paintings  arid  groups  of  statuary  adorned  its  walls  and 
alcoves.  The  dress  of  the  lady  who  courteously  re 
ceived  the  Events'  reporter,  was  suitably  enriched  ;  her 
years  were  discounted,  and  her  beauty  approached  to 
the  patrician  cast.  There  was  nothing  mean  about 
Pinney,  and  while  he  was  at  it  he  lavished  a  manorial 
grandeur  upon  the  Northwick  place,  outside  as  well  as 
inside.  He  imparted  a  romantic  consequence  to  Hat- 
boro'  itself :  "  A  thriving  New  England  town,  proud 
of  its  historic  past,  and  rejoicing  in  its  modern  pros 
perity,  with  a  population  of  some  five  or  six  thousand 
souls,  among  whose  working  men  and  women  modern 
ideas  of  the  most  advanced  character  had  been  realized 
in  the  well-known  Peck  Social  Union,  with  its  co-op 
erative  kitchen  and  its  clientele  of  intelligent  members 
and  patrons." 

People  of  all  occupations  became  leading  residents 
in  virtue  of  taking  Pinney  into  their  confidence,  and 
"  A  Prominent  Proletarian  "  achieved  the  distinction 
of  a  catch-line  by  freely  imparting  the  impressions  of 
J.  M.  Northwick's  character  among  the  working- 
classes.  "The  Consensus  of  Public  Feeling,"  in  por- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          151 

traying  which  Pinney  did  not  fail  to  exploit  the  pro 
prietary  word  he  had  seized,  formed  the  subject  of 
some  dramatic  paragraphs ;  and  the  whole  formed  a 
rich  and  fit  setting  for  the  main  facts  of  Northwick's 
undoubted  fraud  and  flight,  and  for  the  conjectures 
which  Pinney  indulged  in  concerning  his  fate. 

Pinney's  masterpiece  was,  in  fine,  such  as  he  could 
write  only  at  that  moment  of  his  evolution  as  a  man, 
and  such  as  the  Events  could  publish  only  at  that 
period  of  its  development  as  a  newspaper.  The  report 
was  flashy  and  vulgar  and  unscrupulous,  but  it  was  not 
brutal,  except  by  accident,  and  not  unkind  except 
through  the  necessities  of  the  case.  But  it  was  help 
lessly  and  thoroughly  personal,  and  it  was  no  more 
philosophized  than  a  monkish  chronicle  of  the  Middle 
Ages. 

The  Abstract  addressed  a  different  class  of  readers, 
and  aimed  at  a  different  effect  in  its  treatment  of  pub 
lic  affairs.  We  look  upon  newspapers  as  having  a 
sort  of  composite  temperament,  formed  from  the  tem 
peraments  of  all  the  different  men  employed  on  them ; 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  each  express  the  disposi 
tion  and  reflect  the  temperament  of  one  controlling 
spirit,  which  all  the  other  dispositions  and  tempera 
ments  yield  to.  This  is  so  much  the  case  that  it  is 
hard  to  efface  the  influence  of  a  strong  mind  from  the 
journal  it  has  shaped,  even  when  it  is  no  longer  ac 
tively  present  in  it.  A  good  many  years  before  the 
time  of  the  Northwick  defalcation,  the  Events  had 
been  in  the  management  of  a  journalist,  once  well- 


152  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

known  in  Boston,  a  certain  Bartley  Hubbard,  who 
had  risen  from  the  ranks  of  the  reporters,  and  who  had 
thoroughly  reporterized  it  in  the  worst  sense.  After 
he  left  it,  the  owner  tried  several  devices  for  elevating 
and  reforming  it,  but  failed,  partly  because  he  was 
himself  a  man  of  no  ideals  but  those  of  the  counting- 
room,  and  largely  because  the  paper  could  not  recover 
from  the  strong  slant  given  it  without  self-destruction. 
So  the  Events  continued  what  Bartley  Hubbard  had 
made  it,  and  what  the  readers  he  had  called  about  it 
liked  it  to  be :  a  journal  without  principles  and  with 
out  convictions,  but  with  interests  only  ;  a  map  of  busy 
life,  indeed,  but  glaringly  colored,  with  crude  endeavors 
at  picturesqueness,  and  with  no  more  truth  to  life  than 
those  railroad  maps  where  the  important  centres  con 
verge  upon  the  broad  black  level  of  the  line  advertised, 
and  leave  rival  roads  wriggling  faintly  about  in  unin 
habited  solitudes.  In  Hubbard's  time  the  Abstract, 
then  the  Chronicle- Abstract,  was  in  charge  of  the 
editor  who  had  been  his  first  friend  on  the  Boston 
press,  and  whom  he  finally  quarreled  with  on  a  point 
which  this  friend  considered  dishonorable  to  Hubbard. 
Eicker  had  not  since  left  the  paper,  and  though  he 
was  called  a  crank  "by  some  of  the  more  progressive 
and  reckless  of  the  young  men,  he  clung  to  his  ideal 
of  a  conscience  in  journalism  ;  he  gave  the  Abstract 
a  fixed  character  and  it  could  no  more  have  changed 
than  the  Events,  without  self-destruction.  The  men 
under  him  were  not  so  many  as  Caesar's  soldiers, 
and  that,  perhaps,  was  the  reason  why  he  knew 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  ^         153 

not  only  their  names  but  their  qualities.  When 
Maxwell  came  with  the  fact  of  the  defalcation  which 
the  detectives  had  entrusted  to  him  for  provisional  use, 
and  asked  to  be  assigned  to  the  business  of  working  it 
up,  Kicker  consented,  but  he  consented  reluctantly. 
He  thought  Maxwell  was  better  for  better  things ;  he 
knew  he  was  a  ravenous  reader  of  philosophy  and 
sociology,  and  he  had  been  early  in  the  secret  of  his 
being  a  poet ;  it  had  since  become  an  open  secret 
among  his  fellow-reporters,  for  which  he  suffered  both 
honor  and  dishonor. 

"  I  shouldn't  think  you'd  like  to  do  it,  Maxwell," 
said  Ricker,  kindly.  "  It  isn't  in  your  line,  is  it  ?  Bet 
ter  give  it  to  some  of  the  other  fellows." 

"It's  more  in  my  line  than  you  suppose,  Mr. 
Ricker,"  said  the  young  fellow.  "  It's  a  subject  I've 
looked  up  a  great  deal  lately.  I  once  thought "  —  he 
looked  down  bashfully  —  "of  trying  to  write  a  play 
about  a  defaulter,  and  I  got  together  a  good  many 
facts  about  defalcation.  You've  no  idea  how  common 
it  is ;  it's  about  the  commonest  fact  of  our  civiliza 
tion." 

"  Ah!  Is  that  so?  "  asked  Ricker  with  ironical  de 
ference  to  the  bold  generalizer.  "  Who  else  is  '  onto  ' 
this  thing?" 

"  Pinney,  of  the  Events." 

"  Well,  he's  a  dangerous  rival,  in  some  ways,"  said 
Ricker.  "  When  it  comes  to  slush  and  a  whitewash 
brush,  I  don't  think  you're  a  match  for  him.  But  per 
haps  you  don't  intend  to  choose  the  same  weapons." 


154         r  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

Ricker  pulled  down  the  green-lined  pasteboard  peak 
that  he  wore  over  his  forehead  by  gaslight,  and  hitched 
his  chair  round  to  his  desk  again,  and  Maxwell  knew 
that  he  was  authorized  to  do  the  work. 

He  got  no  word  from  the  detective,  who  had  given 
him  a  hint  of  the  affair,  to  go  ahead  the  night  after  his 
return  from  Hatboro',  as  he  had  expected,  but  he  knew 
that  the  fact  could  not  be  kept  back,  and  he  worked 
as  hard  at  his  report  as  Pinney  and  Pinney's  wife  had 
worked  at  theirs.  He  waited  till  the  next  morning  to 
begin,  however,  for  he  was  too  fagged  after  he  came 
home  from  the  Hilarys' ;  he  rose  early  and  got  himself 
a  cup  of  tea  over  the  gas-burner ;  before  the  house 
was  awake  he  was  well  on  in  his  report.  By  nightfall 
he  had  finished  it,  and  then  he  carried  it  to  Ricker. 
The  editor  had  not  gone  to  dinner  yet,  and  he  gave 
Maxwell's  work  the  critical  censure  of  a  hungry  man. 
It  was  in  two  separate  parts  :  one,  a  careful  and  lucid 
statement  of  all  the  facts  which  had  come  to  Maxwell's 
knowledge,  in  his  quality  of  reporter,  set  down  without 
sensation,  and  in  that  self-respectful  decency  of  tone 
which  the  Abstract  affected;  the  other,  an  editorial 
comment  upon  the  facts.  Ricker  read  the  first  through 
without  saying  anything ;  when  he  saw  what  the  second 
was,  he  pushed  up  his  green-lined  peak,  and  said, 
"  Hello,  young  man  !  Who  invited  you  to  take  the 
floor?" 

"Nobody.  I  found  I  couldn't  embody  my  general 
knowledge  of  defalcation  in  the  report  without  imperti 
nence,  and  as  I  had  to  get  my  wisdom  off  my  mind 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  155 

somehow,  I  put  it  in  editorial  shape.  I  don't  expect 
you  to  take  it.  Perhaps  I  can  sell  it  somewhere." 

Ricker  seemed  to  pay  no  attention  to  his  explana 
tion.  He  went  on  reading  the  manuscript,  and  when 
he  ended,  he  took  up  the  report  again,  and  compared 
it  with  the  editorial  in  length.  "  If  we  printed  these 
things  as  they  stand  it  would  look  like  a  case  of  the 
tail  wagging  the  dog." 

Maxwell  began  again,  "  Oh,  I  didn't  expect  —  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  did,"  said  Ricker.  "  Of  course,  you 
felt  that  the  report  was  at  least  physically  inade 
quate." 

"  I  made  as  much  as  I  honestly  could  of  it.  I 
knew  you  didn't  like  padding  or  faking,  and  I  don't 
myself." 

Ricker  was  still  holding  the  two  manuscripts  up 
before  him.  He  now  handed  them  over  his  shoulder 
to  Maxwell,  where  he  stood  beside  him.  "  Do  you 
think  you  could  weld  these  two  things  together  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  Suppose  you  try." 

"  As  editorial,  or  —  " 

"  Either.  I'll  decide  after  you're  done.  Do  it 
here." 

He  pushed  some  papers  off  the  long  table  beside 
him,  and  Maxwell  sat  down  to  his  task.  It  was  not 
difficult.  The  material  was  really  of  kindred  character 
throughout.  He  had  merely  to  write  a  few  prefatory 
sentences,  in  the  editorial  attitude,  to  his  report,  and 
then  append  the  editorial,  with  certain  changes, 


156  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

again.  It  did  not  take  him  long ;  in  half  an  hour  he 
handed  the  result  to  Kicker. 

"  Yes,"  said  Kicker,  and  he  began  to  read  it  anew, 
with  his  blue  pencil  in  his  hand. 

Maxwell  had  come  with  nerves  steeled  to  bear  the 
rejection  of  his  article  entire,  but  he  was  not  pre 
pared  to  suffer  the  erasure  of  all  his  pet  phrases  and 
favorite  sentences,  sometimes  running  to  entire  para 
graphs. 

When  Kicker  handed  it  back  to  him  at  last  with 
"  What  do  you  think  of  it  now  ?  "  Maxwell  had  the 
boldness  to  answer,  "  Well,  Mr.  Kicker,  if  I  must  say, 
I  think  you've  taken  all  the  bones  and  blood  out 
of  it." 

Kicker  laughed.  "  Oh,  no !  Merely  the  fangs  and 
poison-sacks.  Look  here,  young  man  !  Did  you  be 
lieve  all  those  cynical  things  when  you  were  saying 
them?" 

"I  don't  know — " 

"  /know.  I  know  you  didn't.  Every  one  of  them 
rang  false.  They  were  there  for  literary  effect,  and 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  groundlings.  But  by  and  by, 
if  you  keep  on  saying  those  things,  you'll  get  to  think 
ing  them,  and  what  a  man  thinks  a  man  is.  There 
are  things  there  that  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of,  if 
you  really  thought  them,  but  I  know  you  didn't,  so  I 
made  free  to  strike  them  all  out."  Maxwell  looked 
foolish ;  he  wished  to  assert  himself,  but  he  did  not 
know  how.  Kicker  went  on  :  "  Those  charming  little 
sarcasms  and  innuendoes  of  yours  would  have  killed 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          157 

your  article  for  really  intelligent  readers.  They 
would  have  suspected  a  young  fellow  having  his  fling, 
or  an  old  fool  speaking  out  of  the  emptiness  of  his 
heart.  As  it  is,  we  have  got  something  unique,  and  I 
don't  mind  telling  you  I'm  very  glad  to  have  it.  I've 
never  made  any  secret  of  my  belief  that  you  have 
talent." 

"You've  been  very  good,"  said  Maxwell,  a  little 
rueful  still.  The  surgeon's  knife  hurts  though  it  cures. 

When  Maxwell  went  home,  he  met  his  mother. 
"  Why,  mother,"  said  the  young  fellow,  "  old  Ricker 
is  going  to  print  my  report  as  editorial ;  and  we're  not 
going  to  have  any  report." 

u  I  told  you  it  was  good !  " 

Maxwell  felt  it  was  due  to  himself  to  keep  some 
grudge,  and  he  said,  "  Yes ;  but  he's  taken  all  the  life 
out  of  it  with  his  confounded  blue  pencil.  It's  per 
fectly  dead." 

It  did  not  seem  so  when  he  saw  it  in  proof  at  the 
office  later,  and  it  did  not  seem  so  when  he  got  it  in 
the  paper.  He  had  not  slept  well ;  he  was  excited  by 
several  things ;  by  the  use  Ricker  had  made  of  his 
work,  and  by  the  hopes  of  advancement  which  this 
use  quickened  in  him.  He  was  not  ashamed  of  it ;  he 
was  very  proud  of  it ;  and  he  wondered  at  its  symmetry 
and  force,  as  he  read  and  read  it  again. 

He  had  taken  very  high  philosophical  ground  in  his 
view  of  the  matter,  and  had  accused  the  structure  of 
society.  There  must  be  something  rotten,  he  said, 
at  the  core  of  our  civilization,  when  every  morning 


158  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

brought  the  story  of  a  defalcation,  great  or  small,  in 
some  part  of  our  country :  not  the  peculations  of  such 
poor  clerks  and  messengers  as  their  employers  could 
be  insured  against,  but  of  officials,  public  and  corpo 
rate,  for  whom  we  had  no  guaranty  but  the  average 
morality  of  our  commercial  life.  How  low  this  was 
might  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  while  such  a 
defalcation  as  that  of  J.  M.  Northwick  created  dis 
may  in  business  and  social  circles,  it  could  not  fairly 
be  said  to  create  surprise.  It  was,  most  unhappily,  a 
thing  to  be  expected,  in  proof  of  which  no  stronger 
evidence  need  be  alleged  than  that  patent  to  the 
Abstract  reporter  in  the  community  where  the  de 
faulter  had  his  home,  and  where,  in  spite  of  his  repu 
tation  for  the  strictest  probity,  it  was  universally 
believed  that  he  had  run  away  with  other  people's 
money  merely  because  he  had  been  absent  twenty- 
four  hours  without  accounting  for  his  wherabouts. 

At  this  point  Maxwell  wove  in  the  material  he  had 
gathered  on  his  visit  to  Hatboro',  and  without  using 
names  or  persons  contrived  to  give  a  vivid  impression 
of  the  situation  and  the  local  feeling.  He  aimed  at 
the  historical  attitude,  and  with  some  imitation  of 
Taine's  method  and  manner,  he  achieved  it.  His 
whole  account  of  the  defalcation  had  a  closeness  of 
texture  which  involved  every  significant  detail,  from 
the  first  chance  suspicion  of  the  defaulter's  honesty,  to 
the  final  opinions  and  conjectures  of  his  fate.  At  the 
same  time  the  right  relation  and  proportion  of  the 
main  facts  were  kept,  and  the  statement  was  through- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  159 

out  so  dignified  and  dispassionate  that  it  had  the 
grace  of  something  remote  in  time  and  place.  It  was 
when  the  narrative  ended  and  the  critical  comment 
began  that  the  artistic  values  made  themselves  felt. 
Ricker  had  been  free  in  his  recognition  of  the  excel 
lence  of  Maxwell's  work,  and  quick  to  appreciate  its 
importance  to  the  paper.  He  made  the  young  fellow 
disjointed  compliments  and  recurrent  predictions  con 
cerning  it  when  they  were  together,  but  there  were 
qualities  in  it  that  he  felt  afterwards  he  had  not  been 
just  to.  Of  course  it  owed  much  to  the  mere  accident 
of  Maxwell's  accumulation  of  material  about  defalca 
tions  for  his  play  ;  but  he  had  known  men  break 
down  under  the  mass  of  their  material,  and  it 
surprised  and  delighted,  him  to  see  how  easily 
and  strongly  Maxwell  handled  his.  That  sick  little 
youngster  carried  it  all  off  with  an  air  of  robust 
maturity  that  amused  as  well  as  surprised  Ricker. 
He  saw  where  the  fellow  had  helped  himself  out,  con 
sciously  or  unconsciously,  with  the  style  and  method 
of  his  favorite  authors ;  and  he  admired  the  philo 
sophic  poise  he  had  studied  from  them ;  but  no  one 
except  Maxwell  himself  was  in  the  secret  of  the  for 
bearance,  the  humane  temperance  with  which  North- 
wick  was  treated.  This  was  a  color  from  the  play 
which  had  gone  to  pieces  in  his  hands  ;  he  simply 
adapted  the  conception  of  a  typical  defaulter,  as  he 
had  evolved  it  from  a  hundred  instances,  to  the  case  of 
the  defaulter  in  hand,  and  it  fitted  perfectly.  He 
had  meant  his  imaginary  defaulter  to  appeal  rather  to 


160  THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY. 

the  compassion  than  the  justice  of  the  theatre,  and  he 
presented  to  the  reader  the  almost  fatal  aspect  of  the 
offence.  He  dwelt  upon  the  fact  that  the  case,  so  far 
from  being  isolated  or  exceptional,  was  without  peculi 
arities,  was  quite  normal.  He  drew  upon  his  accumu 
lated  facts  for  the  proof  of  this,  and  with  a  rapid  array 
of  defaulting  treasurers,  cashiers,  superintendents,  and 
presidents,  he  imparted  a  sense  of  the  uniformity  in 
their  malfeasance  which  is  so  evident  to  the  student. 
They  were  all  comfortably  placed  and  in  the  way  to 
prosperity  if  not  fortune ;  they  were  all  tempted  by 
the  possession  of  means  to  immediate  wealth  ;  they  all 
yielded  so  far  as  to  speculate  with  the  money  that  did 
not  belong  to  them ;  they  were  all  easily  able  to  re 
place  the  first  loans  they  made  themselves  ;  they  all 
borrowed  again  and  then  could  not  replace  the  loans ; 
they  were  all  found  out,  and  all  were  given  a  certain 
time  to  make  up  their  shortage.  After  tluit  a  certain 
diversity  appeared :  some  shot  themselves,  and  some 
hanged  themselves,  others  decided  to  stand  their  trial ; 
the  vastly  greater  number  ran  away  to  Canada. 

In  this  presentation  of  the  subject,  Maxwell  had 
hardly  to  do  more  than  to  copy  the  words  of  a  certain 
character  in  his  play  :  one  of  those  cynical  personages, 
well-known  to  the  drama,  whose  function  is  to  observe 
the  course  of  the  action,  and  to  make  good-humored 
sarcasms  upon  the  conduct  and  motives  of  the  other 
characters.  It  was  here  that  Ricker  employed  his 
blue  pencil  the  most  freely,  and  struck  out  passages 
of  almost  diabolical  persiflage,  and  touched  the  colors 


THE    QUALITY    OP   MERCY.  161 

of  the  black  pessimism  with  a  few  rays  of  hope.  The 
final  summing  up,  again,  was  adapted  from  a  drama 
that  had  been  rejected  by  several  purveyors  of  the 
leg-burlesque  as  immoral.  In  a  soliloquy  intended  to 
draw  tears  from  the  listener,  the  hero  of  Maxwell's 
play,  when  he  parted  from  his  young  wife  and  children, 
before  taking  poison,  made  some  apposite  reflections 
on  his  case,  in  which  he  regarded  himself  as  the  victim 
of  conditions,  and  in  prophetic  perspective  beheld  an 
interminable  line  of  defaulters  to  come,  who  should 
encounter  the  same  temptations  and  commit  the  same 
crimes  under  the  same  circumstances.  Maxwell  sim 
ply  recast  this  soliloquy  in  editorial  terms ;  and  main 
tained  that  not  only  was  there  nothing  exceptional  in 
Northwick's  case,  but  that  it  might  be  expected  to 
repeat  itself  indefinitely,  On  one  hand,  you  had 
men  educated  to  business  methods  which  permitted 
this  form  of  dishonesty  and  condemned  that ;  their 
moral  fibre  was  strained,  if  not  weakened,  by  the 
struggle  for  money  going  on  all  around  us ;  on  the 
other  hand,  you  had  opportunity,  the  fascination  of 
chance,  the  uncertainty  of  punishment.  The  causes 
would  continue  the  same,  and  the  effects  would  con 
tinue  the  same.  He  declared  that  no  good  citizen 
could  wish  a  defaulter  to  escape  the  penalty  of  his 
offence  against  society  ;  but  it  behooved  society  to 
consider  how  far  it  was  itself  responsible,  which  it 
might  well  do  without  ignoring  the  responsibility  of 
the  criminal.  He  ended  with  a  paragraph  in  which 
he  forecast  a  future  without  such  causes  and  without 


162  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

such  effects ;  but  Ricker  would  not  let  this  pass,  even 
in  the  semi-ironical  temper  Maxwell  had  given  it.  He 
said  it  was  rank  socialism,  and  he  cut  it  out  in  the 
proof,  where  he  gave  the  closing  sentences  of  the 
article  an  interrogative  instead  of  an  affirmative 
shape. 


XIX. 

THE  Hilarys  always  straggled  down  to  breakfast  as 
they  chose.  When  Matt  was  at  home,  his  mother  and 
he  were  usually  first ;  then  his  father  came,  and 
Louise  last.  They  took  the  Events,  as  many  other 
people  did,  because  with  all  its  faults  it  was  a  thorough 
newspaper ;  and  they  maintained  their  self-respect  by 
taking  the  Abstract.  The  morning  that  the  defalcation 
came  out,  Matt  sent  and  got  all  the  other  papers, 
which  he  had  glanced  through  and  talked  over  with 
his  mother  before  his  father  joined  them  at  nine 
o'clock. 

Several  of  them  had  illustrations :  likenesses  of 
Northwick,  and  views  of  his  house  in  Boston,  and  his 
house  in  Hatboro' ;  views  of  the  company's  Mills  at 
Ponkwasset;  views  of  the  railroad  wreck  at  Well- 
water  ;  but  it  was  Pinuey's  masterpiece  which  really 
made  Hilary  sick.  All  the  papers  were  atrocious,  but 
that  was  loathsome.  Yet  there  was  really  nothing 
more  to  blame  in  the  attitude  of  the  papers  than  in 
that  of  the  directors,  who  gave  the  case  to  the  detec 
tives,  and  set  the  machinery  of  publicity  at  work. 
Both  were  acting  quite  within  their  rights,  both  were 
fulfilling  an  official  duty.  Hilary,  however,  had  been 
forced  against  his  grain  into  the  position,  almost,  of 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

Northwick's  protector ;  he  had  suffered  keenly  from 
the  falsity  of  this  position,  for  no  one  despised  the  sort 
of  man  Northwick  was  more  than  he ;  but  when  you 
have  suffered,  even  for  a  rogue,  you  begin  to  feel 
some  kindness  for  him.  All  these  blows  fell  upon  his 
growing  sympathy  for  the  poor  devil,  as  he  called  him. 
He  got  through  the  various  accounts  in  the  various 
papers,  by  broken  efforts,  taking  them  as  if  in  succes 
sive  shocks  from  these  terrible  particulars,  which 
seemed  to  shower  themselves  upon  him  when  he  came 
in  range  of  them,  till  he  felt  bruised  and  beaten  all 
over. 

"  Well,  at  least,  it's  out,  my  dear,"  said  his  wife,  who 
noted  the  final  effect  of  his  sufferings  across  the  table, 
and  saw  him  pause  bewildered  from  the  last  paper  he 
had  dropped.  "  There's  that  comfort." 

"  Is  that  a  comfort?  ''  he  asked,  huskily. 

"  Why,  yes,  I  think  it  is.  The  suspense  is  over, 
and  now  you  can  begin  to  pick  yourself  up." 

"I  suppose  there's  something  in  that."  He  kept 
looking  at  Matt,  or  rather,  at  the  copy  of  the  Abstract 
which  Matt  was  hiding  behind,  and  he  said,  "  What 
have  you  got  there,  Matt  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  I'd  better  read  it  out,"  said  Matt.  "  It 
seems  to  me  most  uncommonly  good.  I  wonder  who 
could  have  done  it !  " 

"  Suppose  you  do  your  wondering  afterwards,"  said 
his  father  impatiently  ;  and  Matt  began  to  read.  The 
positions  of  the  article  were  not  such  as  Hilary  could 
have  taken,  probably,  if  he  had  been  in  a  different 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  165 

mood ;  its  implications  were,  some  of  them,  such  as  he 
must  have  decidedly  refused;  but  the  temper  of  the 
whole  was  so  humane,  so  forbearing,  so  enlightened, 
that  Hilary  was  in  a  glow  of  personal  gratitude  to  the 
writer,  for  what  he  called  his  common  decency,  by  the 
time  the  reading  was  over.  "  That  is  a  very  extra 
ordinary  article,"  he  said,  and  he  joined  Matt  in  won 
dering  who  could  have  done  it,  with  the  usual  effect 
in  such  cases. 

"  I  wish,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "  that  every  other 
newspaper  could  be  kept  from  those  poor  things." 
She  meant  North  wick's  daughters,  and  she  added,  "  If 
they  must  know  the  facts,  they  couldn't  be  more 
mercifully  told  them." 

"Why,  that  was  what  I  was  thinking,  mother,"  said 
Matt.  "  But  they  can't  be  kept  to  this  version,  un 
happily.  The  misery  will  have  to  come  on  them 
shapelessly,  as  all  our  miseries  do.  I  don't  know  that 
the  other  papers  are  so  bad  —  " 

"  Not  bad !  "  cried  his  father. 

"  No.  They're  not  unkind  to  them,  except  as  they 
are  just  to  him.  They  probably  represent  fairly 
enough  the  average  thinking  and  feeling  about  the 
matter ;  the  thing  they'll  have  to  meet  all  their  lives 
and  get  used  to.  But  I  wish  I  knew  who  did  this 
Abstract  article  ;  I  should  like  to  thank  him." 

"  The  question  is,  now,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "  What 
can  we  do  for  them  there  ?  Are  you  sure  you  made  it 
clear  to  them,  Matt,  that  we  were  willing  to  have 
them  come  to  us,  no  matter  what  happened  ?  " 


166  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  Louise  and  I  both  tried  to  do  that,"  said  her  son, 
"  when  we  were  there  together ;  and  when  I  reported 
to  them  after  Well  water,  I  told  them  again  and  again 
what  our  wish  was." 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "  I  am  glad  we  have  done 
everything  we  could.  At  first  I  doubted  the  wisdom 
of  your  taking  Louise  to  see  them ;  but  now  I'm  satis 
fied  that  it  was  right.  And  I'm  satisfied  that  your 
father  did  right  in  getting  that  wretched  creature  the 
chance  he  abused." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Matt.  "  That  was  right.  And  I'm 
thoroughly  glad  he's  out  of  it.  If  he's  still  alive, 
I'm  glad  he's  out  of  it." 

Hilary  had  kept  silent,  miserably  involved  in  his 
various  remorses  and  misgivings,  but  now  he  broke 
out.  "And  I  think  you're  talking  abominable  non 
sense,  Matt.  I  didn't  get  Arorthwick  given  that  chance 
to  enable  him  to  escape  the  consequences  of  his  ras 
cality.  Why  shouldn't  he  be  punished  for  it  ?  " 

"  Because  it  wouldn't  do  the  least  good,  to  him  or 
to  any  one  else.  It  wouldn't  reform  him,  it  wouldn't 
reform  anything.  North  wick  isn't  the  disease;  he's 
merely  the  symptom.  You  can  suppress  him;  but 
that  won't  cure  the  disease.  It's  the  whole  social  body 
that's  sick,  as  this  article  in  the  Abstract  implies." 

"  I  don't  see  any  such  implication  in  it,"  his  father 
angrily  retorted.  "Your  theory  would  form  an  ex 
cuse  for  the  scoundrelism  of  every  scoundrel  unhung. 
Where  is  the  cure  of  the  social  body  to  begin  if  it 
doesn't  begin  at  home,  with  every  man  in  it  ?  I  tell 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  1G7 

you,  it  would  be  a  very  good  thing  for  Northwick,  and 
every  rogue  like  him,  if  he  could  be  made  serve  his 
term  in  State's  prison." 

The  controversy  raged  a  long  time  without  depart 
ing  from  these  lines  of  argument  on  either  side.  Mrs. 
Hilary  listened  with  the  impatience  women  feel  at 
every  absence  from  the  personal  ground,  the  only 
ground  of  reality.  When  Matt  had  got  so  far  from  it 
as  to  be  saying  to  his  father,  "  Then  I  understand  you 
to  maintain  that  if  A  is  properly  punished  for  his  sins, 
B  will  practice  virtue  in  the  same  circumstances  and 
under  the  same  temptations  that  were  too  much  for 
A,"  his  mother  tried  to  break  in  upon  them.  She  did 
not  know  much  about  the  metaphysical  rights  and 
wrongs  of  the  question ;  she  only  felt  that  Matt  was 
getting  his  father,  who  loved  him  so  proudly  and  in 
dulgently,  into  a  corner,  and  she  saw  that  this  was 
unseemly.  Besides,  when  anything  wrong  happens, 
a  woman  always  wants  some  one  punished;  some 
woman,  first,  or  then  some  other  woman's  men  kin 
dred.  Every  woman  is  a  conservative  in  this,  and 
Mrs.  Hilary  made  up  her  mind  to  stop  the  talk  be 
tween  her  son  and  husband,  because  she  felt  Matt  to 
be  doubly  wrong. 

But  when  she  spoke,  her  husband  roared  at  her, 
"  Don't  interrupt,  Sarah ! "  and  then  he  roared  at 
Matt,  "  I  tell  you  that  the  individual  is  not  concerned 
in  the  matter !  I  tell  you  that  it  is  the  interest,  the 
necessity  of  the  community  to  punish  A  for  his  sins 
without  regard  to  B,  and  for  my  part,  I  shall  leave 


168  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

no  stone  unturned  till  we  have  found  Northwick,  dead 
or  alive ;  and  if  lie  is  alive,  I  shall  spare  no  effort  to 
have  him  brought  to  trial,  conviction  and  punishment." 
He  shouted  these  words  out,  and  thumped  the  break 
fast  table  so  that  the  spoons  clattered  in  the  cups,  and 
Mrs.  Hilary  could  hardly  hear  what  Patrick  was  say 
ing  just  inside  the  door. 

"  To  see  Mr.  Hilary  ?  A  lady  ?  Did  she  send  her 
card  ?  " 

"  She  wouldn't  give  her  name,  ma'am ;  she  said  she 
didn't  wish  to,  ma'am.  She  wished  to  see  Mr.  Hilary 
just  a  moment  in  the  reception-room." 

Hilary  was  leaning  forward  to  give  the  table  another 
bang  with  his  fist,  but  his  wife  succeeded  in  stopping 
him,  with  a  repetition  of  Patrick's  message. 

"  I  won't  see  her,"  he  answered.  "  It's  probably  a 
woman  reporter.  They're  in  our  very  bread  trough. 
I  tell  you,"  he  went  on  to  Matt,  "  there  are  claims 
upon  you  as  a  citizen,  as  a  social  factor,  which  annul 
all  your  sentimental  obligations  to  B  as  a  brother. 
God  bless  my  soul!  Isn't  C  a  brother,  too,  and  all 
the  rest  of  the  alphabet  ?  If  A  robs  the  other  letters, 
then  let  B  take  a  lesson  from  the  wholesome  fact  that 
A's  little  game  has  landed  him  in  jail." 

"  Oh,  I  admit  that  the  A's  had  better  suffer  for  their 
sins ;  but  I  doubt  if  the  punishment  which  a  man  gets 
against  his  will  is  the  right  kind  of  suffering.  If  this 
man  had  come  forward  voluntarily,  and  offered  to  bear 
the  penalty  he  had  risked  by  his  misdeed,  it  would 
have  been  a  good  thing  for  himself  and  for  everybody 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  169 

else ;  it  would  have  been  a  real  warning.  But  he  ran 
away." 

"And  so  he  ought  to  be  allowed  to  stay  away! 
You  are  a  pretty  Dogberry  come  to  judgment !  You 
would  convict  a  thief  by  letting  him  steal  out  of  your 
company." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that's  what  you  did,  father.  And 
I  think  you  did  right,  as  I've  told  you." 

"What  /  did  ?"  shouted  Hilary.  "No,  sir,  I  did 
nothing  of  the  kind  !  I  gave  him  a  chance  to  make 
himself  an  honest  man  —  " 

"  My  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "  you  must  go  and 
get  rid  of  that  woman,  at  least ;  or  let  ?ne." 

Hilary  flung  down  his  napkin,  and  red  from  argu 
ment  cast  a  dazed  look  about  him,  and  without  really 
quite  knowing  what  he  was  about  rushed  out  of  the 
room. 

His  wife  hardly  had  time  to  say,  "  You  oughtn't  to 
have  got  into  a  dispute  with  your  father,  Matt,  when 
you  know  he's  been  so  perplexed,"  before  they  heard 
his  voice  call  out,  "  Good  heavens,  my  poor  child ! " 
For  the  present  they  could  not  know  that  this  was  a 
cry  of  dismay  at  the  apparition  of  Suzette  Northwick, 
who  met  him  in  the  reception-room  with  the  demand : 

"  What  is  this  about  my  father,  Mr.  Hilary  ?  " 

"  About  your  father,  my  dear  ?  "  He  took  the  hands 
she  put  out  to  him  with  her  words,  and  tried  to  think 
what  pitying  and  helpful  thing  he  could  say.  She 
got  them  away  from  him,  and  held  one  fast  with  the 
other. 


170  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"Is  it  true  ?  "  she  asked. 

He  permitted  himself  the  pretence  of  not  under 
standing  her;  he  had  to  do  it.  "Why,  we  hope  — 
we  hope  it  isn't  true.  Nothing  more  is  known  about 
his  being  in  the  accident  than  we  knew  at  first. 
Didn't  Matt  — " 

"  It  isn't  that.  It's  worse  than  that.  It's  that  other 
thing  —  that  the  papers  say —  that  he  was  a  defaulter 

—  dishonest.     Is  that  true  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  no !  Nothing  of  the  kind,  my  dear !  " 
Hilary  had  to  say  this ;  he  felt  that  it  would  be  in 
human  to  say  anything  else  ;•  nothing  else  would  have 
been  possible.  "Those  newspapers  —  confound  them! 

—  you  know  how  they  get  things  all  —    You  needn't 
mind  what  the  papers  say." 

"But  why  should  they  say  anything  about  my 
father,  at  such  a  time,  when  he's  —  What  does  it  all 
mean,  Mr.  Hilary  ?  I  don't  believe  the  papers,  and 
so  I  came  to  you  —  as  soon  as  I  could,  this  morning. 
I  knew  you  would  tell  me  the  truth.  You  have 
known  my  father  so  long ;  and  you  know  how  good 
he  is !  I  —  You  know  that  he  never  wronged  any 
one  —  that  he  couldn't !  " 

"  Of  course,  of  course !  "  said  Hilary.  "  It  was  quite 
right  to  come  to  me  —  quite  right.  How  —  how  is 
your  sister?  You  must  stay,  now — Louise  isn't 
down,  yet  —  and  have  breakfast  with  her.  I've  just 
left  Mrs.  Hilary  at  the  table.  You  must  join  us.  She 
can  assure  you  —  Matt  is  quite  confident  that  there's 
nothing  to  be  distressed  about  in  regard  to  the  — 
He  —  " 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  171 

Hilary  kept  bustling  aimlessly  about  as  he  spoke 
these  vague  phrases,  and  he  now  tried  to  have  her 
go  out  of  the  room  before  him ;  but  she  dropped  into 
a  chair,  and  he  had  to  stay. 

"  I  want  you  to  tell  me,  Mr.  Hilary,  whether  there 
is  the  slightest  foundation  for  what  the  papers  say  this 
morning  ?  " 

"  How,  foundation  ?     My  dear  child  —  " 

"  Has  there  been  any  trouble  between  my  father 
and  the  company  ?  " 

"  Well  —  well,  there  are  always  questions  arising." 

"  Is  there  any  question  of  my  father's  accounts  — 
his  honesty  ?  " 

"  People  question  everything  nowadays,  when  there 
is  so  much  —  want  of  confidence  in  business.  There 
have  to  be  investigations,  from  time  to  time." 

"  And  has  there  been  any  reason  to  suspect  my 
father  ?  Does  any  one  suspect  him  ?  " 

Hilary  looked  round  the  room  with  a  roving  eye, 
that  he  could  not  bring  to  bear  upon  the  girl's  face. 
"Why,  I  suppose  that  some  of  us — some  of  the  di 
rectors  —  have  had  doubts  —  " 

"  Have  you  ?  " 

"  My  dear  girl  —  my  poor  child  !  You  couldn't 
understand.  But  I  can  truly  say,  that  when  tins 
examination — when  the  subject  came  up  for  discus- 
tion  at  the  board-meeting,  I  felt  warranted  in  insisting 
that  your  father  should  have  time  to  make  it  all  right. 
He  said  he  could  ;  and  we  agreed  that  he  should  have 
the  chance."  Hilary  said  this  for  the  sake  of  the 


172  THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY. 

girl ;  and  lie  was  truly  ashamed  of  the  magnanimous 
face  it  put  upon  his  part  in  the  affair.  He  went  on  : 
"  It  is  such  a  very,  very  common  thing  for  people  in 
positions  of  trust  to  use  the  resources  in  their  charge, 
and  then  replace  them,  that  these  things  happen  every 
day,  and  no  harm  is  meant,  and  none  is  done  —  unless 
—  unless  the  venture  turns  out  unfortunately.  It's 
not  an  isolated  case  ! "  Hilary  felt  that  he  was  get 
ting  on  now,  though  he  was  aware  that  he  was  talk 
ing  very  immorally ;  but  he  knew  that  he  was  not 
corrupting  the  poor  child  before  him,  and  that  he  was 
doing  his  best  to  console  her,  to  comfort  her.  "  The 
whole  affair  was  verv  well  put  in  the  Abstract.  Have 
you  seen  it  ?  You  must  see  that,  and  not  mind  what 
the  other  papers  say.  Come  in  to  Mrs.  Hilary  —  we 
have  the  paper  —  " 

Suzette  rose.  "  Then  some  of  the  directors  believe 
that  niy  father  has  been  taking  the  money  of  the  com 
pany,  as  the  papers  say  ?  " 

"  Their  believing  this  or  that,  is  nothing  to  the 
point  —  " 

"  Do  you  ?  " 

"I  can't  say  —  I  don't  think  he  meant —  He  ex 
pected  to  restore  it,  of  course.  He  was  given  time  for 
that."  Hilary  hesitated,  and  then  he  thought  he  had 
better  say :  "  But  he  had  certainly  been  employing 
the  company's  funds  in  his  private  enterprises." 

"  That  is  all,"  said  the  girl,  and  she  now  preceded 
Hilary  out  of  the  room.  It  was  with  inexpressible 
relief  that  he  looked  up  and  saw  Louise  coming  down 
the  stairs. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          173 

"  Why,  Sue  !  "  she  cried ;  and  she  flew  down  the 
steps,  and  threw  her  arms  around  her  friend's  neck. 
"  Oh,  Sue,  Sue ! "  she  said,  in  that  voice  a  woman 
uses  to  let  another  woman  know  that  she  understands 
and  sympathizes  utterly  with  her. 

Suzette  coldly  undid  her  clasping  arms.  "  Let  me 
go,  Louise." 

"'No,  no!  You  shan't  go.  I  want  you — you 
must  stay  with  us,  now.  I  know  Matt  doesn't  believe 
at  all  in  that  dreadful  report." 

"  That  wouldn't  be  anything  now,  even  if  it  were 
true.  There's  another  report  —  don't  you  know  it  ?  — 
in  the  paper  this  morning."  Louise  tried  to  look 
unconscious  in  the  slight  pause  Suzette  made  before 
she  said  :  "  And  your  father  ^as  been  saying  my  father 
is  a  thief." 

"Oh,  papa !  "  Louise  wailed  out. 

It  was  outrageously  unfair  and  ungrateful  of  them 
both;  and  Hilary  gave  a  roar  of  grief  and  protest. 
Suzette  escaped  from  Louise,  and  before  he  could 
hinder  it,  flashed  by  Hilary  to  the  street  door,  and 
was  gone. 


XX. 

THE  sorrow  that  turned  to  shame  in  other  eyes 
remained  sorrow  to  Northwick's  daughters.  When 
their  father  did  not  come  back,  or  make  any  sign  of 
being  anywhere  in  life,  they  reverted  to  their  first 
belief,  and  accepted  the  fact  of  his  death.  But  it  was 
a  condition  of  their  grief,  that  they  must  refuse  any 
thought  of  guilt  in  him.  Their  love  began  to  work 
that  touching  miracle  which  is  possible  in  women's 
hearts,  and  to  establish  a  faith  in  his  honor  which 
no  proof  of  his  dishonesty  could  shake. 

Even  if  they  could  have  believed  all  the  things  those 
newspapers  accused  him  of,  they  might  not  have  seen 
the  blame  that  others  did  in  his  acts.  But  as  women, 
they  could  not  make  the  fine  distinctions  that  men 
make  in  business  morality,  and  as  Northwick's 
daughters,  they  knew  that  he  would  not  have  done 
what  he  did  if  it  was  wrong.  Their  father  had  bor 
rowed  other  people's  money,  intending  to  pay  it  back, 
and  then  had  lost  his  own,  and  could  not ;  that  was 
all. 

With  every  difference  of  temperament  they  agreed 
upon  this,  and  they  were  agreed  that  it  would  be  a 
sort  of  treason  to  his  memory  if  they  encouraged  the 
charges  against  him  by  making  any  change  in  their 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  175 

life.  But  it  was  a  relief  to  them,  especially  to  Su- 
zette,  who  held  the  purse,  when  the  changes  began  to 
make  themselves,  and  their  costly  establishment  fell 
away,  through  the  discontent  and  anxiety  of  this  ser 
vant  arid  that,  till  none  were  left  but  Elbridge  Newton 
and  his  wife.  She  had  nothing  to  do  now  but  grieve 
for  the  child  she  had  lost,  and  she  willingly  came  in 
to  help  about  the  kitchen  and  parlor  work,  while  her 
husband  looked  after  the  horses  and  cattle  as  well  as 
he  could,  and  tended  the  furnaces,  and  saw  that  the 
plants  in  the  greenhouses  did  not  freeze.  He  was  up 
early  and  late  ;  he  had  no  poetic  loyalty  to  the  North- 
wicks  ;  but  as  nearly  as  he  could  explain  his  devotion, 
they  had  always  treated  him  well,  and  he  could  not 
bear  to  see  things  run  behind. 

Day  after  day  went  by,  and  week  after  week,  and 
the  sisters  lived  on  in  the  solitude  to  which  the  com 
passion,  the  diffidence,  or  the  contempt  of  their  neigh 
bors  left  them.  Adeline  saw  Wade,  whenever  he  came 
to  the  house,  where  he  felt  it  his  duty  and  his  privi 
lege  to  bring  the  consolation  that  his  office  empowered 
him  to  offer  in  any  house  of  mourning ;  but  Suzette 
would  not  see  him ;  she  sent  him  grateful  messages 
and  promises,  when  he  called,  and  bade  Adeline  tell 
him  each  time  that  the  next  time  she  hoped  to  see  him. 

One  of  the  ladies  of  South  Hatboro',  a  Mrs. 
Hunger,  who  spent  her  winters  as  well  as  her  sum 
mers  there,  penetrated  as  far  as  the  library,  upon  her 
own  sense  of  what  was  due  to  herself  as  a  neighbor; 

£5 

but  she  failed  to  find  either  of  the  sisters.     She  had  to 
12 


17G  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

content  herself  with  urging  Mrs.  Morrell,  the  wife  of 
the  doctor,  to  join  her  in  a  second  attempt  upon  their 
privacy;  but  Mrs.  Morrell  had  formed  a  notion  of 
Suzette's  character  and  temper  adverse  to  the 
motherly  impulse  of  pity  which  she  would  have  felt 
for  any  one  else  in  the  girl's  position.  Mrs.  Gerrish, 
the  wife  of  the  leading  merchant  in  Hatboro',  who 
distinguished  himself  by  coining  up  from  Boston  with 
Northwick,  on  the  very  day  of  the  directors'  meeting, 
would  have  joined  Mrs.  Hunger,  but  her  husband  for 
bade  her.  He  had  stood  out  against  the  whole  com 
munity  in  his  belief  in  Northwick's  integrity  and 
solvency;  and  while  every  one  else  accused  him  of 
running  away  as  soon  as  he  was  reported  among  the 
missing  in  the  railroad  accident,  Gerrish  had  refused 
to  admit  it.  The  defalcation  came  upon  him  like 
thunder  out  of  a  clear  sky ;  he  felt  himself  disgraced 
before  his  fellow-citizens ;  and  he  resented  the  deceit 
which  Northwick  had  tacitly  practised  upon  him.  He 
was  impatient  of  the  law's  delays  in  seizing  the  prop 
erty  the  defaulter  had  left  behind  him,  and  which  was 
now  clearly  the  property  of  his  creditors.  Other 
people  in  Hatboro',  those  who  had  been  the  readiest 
to  suspect  Northwick,  cherished  a  guilty  leniency 
toward  him  in  their  thoughts.  Some  believed  that  he 
had  gone  to  his  account  in  other  courts  ;  some  that 
he  was  still  alive  in  poverty  and  exile,  which  were  ' 
punishment  enough,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned.  But 
Gerrish  demanded  something  exemplary,  something 
dramatic  from  the  law.  He  blamed  the  Ponkwasset 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.  177 

directors  for  a  species  of  incivism,  in  failing  to  have 
Northwick  indicted  at  once,  dead  or  alive. 

"  Why  don't  they  turn  his  family  out  of  that  house, 
and  hand  it  over  to  the  stockholders  he  has  robbed  ?  " 
he  asked  one  morning  in  the  chance  conclave  of 
loungers  in  his  store.  "  I  understand  it  is  this  man 
Hilary,  in  Boston,  who  has  shielded  and  —  and  pro 
tected  him  from  the  start,  and  —  and  right  along.  I 
don't  know  why  ;  but  if  I  was  one  of  the  Ponkwasset 
stockholders,  I  think  I  should.  I  should  make  a  point 
of  inquiring  why  Northwick's  family  went  on  living  in 
my  house  after  he  had  plundered  me  of  everything  he 
could  lay  his  hands  on." 

The  lawyer  Putney  was  present,  and  he  shifted  the 
tobacco  he  had  in  one  cheek  to  the  other  cheek,  and 
set  his  little,  firm  jaw.  "  Well,  Billy,  I'll  tell  you 
why.  Because  the  house,  and  farm,  and  all  the  real 
estate  belong  to  Northwick's  family  and  not  to  North- 
wick's  creditors."  The  listeners  laughed,  and  Putney 
went  on,  "  That  was  a  point  that  brother  Northwick 
looked  after  a  good  while  ago,  I  guess.  I  guess  he 
must  have  done  it  as  long  ago  as  when  you  first  wanted 
his  statue  put  on  top  of  the  soldier's  monument." 

"  I  never  wanted  his  statue  put  on  top  of  the  sol 
dier's  monument !  "  Mr.  Gerrish  retorted  angrily. 

Putney's  spree  was  past,  and  he  was  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  the  contempt  for  Gerrish,  which  was 
apt  to  turn  to  profound  respect  when  he  was  in  his 
cups.  He  was  himself  aware  of  the  anomalous  transi 
tion  by  which  he  then  became  a  leader  of  conserva- 


178  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

tive  feeling  on  all  subjects  and  one  of  the  staunchest 
friends  of  the  status ;  he  said  it  was  the  worst  thing 
he  knew  against  the  existing  condition  of  things.  He 

O  G  O 

went  on,  now  :  "  Didn't  you  ?  Well,  I  think  it  would 
look  better  than  that  girl  they've  got  there  in  cir 
cus-clothes."  They  all  laughed;  Putney  had  a  dif 
ferent  form  of  derision  for  the  Victory  of  the  soldier's 
monument  every  time  he  spoke  of  it.  "  And  it  would 
suggest  what  those  poor  fellows  really  died  for  :  that 
we  could  have  more  and  more  North  wicks,  arid  a  whole 
Northwick  system  of  things.  Heigh  ?  You  see,  Billy,  I 
don't  have  to  be  so  hard  on  the  North  wicks,  personally, 
because  I  regard  them  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  sys 
tem.  What  would  become  of  the  laws  and  the  courts 
if  there  were  no  rogues  ?  We  must  have  Northwicks. 
It's  a  pity  that  the  Northwicks  should  have  families  ; 
but  I  don't  blame  the  Northwicks  for  providing  against 
the  evil  day  that  Northwickism  is  sure  to  end  in.  I'm 
glad  the  roof  can't  be  taken  from  over  those  women's 
heads ;  I  respect  the  paternal  love  and  foresight  of  J. 
Milton  in  deeding  the  property  to  them." 

"It's  downright  robbery  of  his  creditors  for  thorn  to 
keep  it !  "  Gerrish  shouted. 

"  Oh,  no,  it  isn't,  Billy.  It's  law.  You  must  re 
spect  the  law  and  the  rights  of  property.  You'll  be 
wanting  the  strikers  to  burn  down  the  shoe-shops  the 
next  time  we  have  trouble  here.  You're  getting 
awfully  incendiary,  Billy." 

Putney  carried  the  laugh  against  Gerrish,  but  there 
were  some  of  the  group,  and  there  were  many  people 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  179 

in  Hatboro',  including  most  of  the  women,  who  felt 
the  want  of  exemplary  measures  in  dealing  with  North- 
wick's  case.  These  ladies  did  not  see  the  sense  of  let 
ting  those  girls  live  on  just  as  if  nothing  had  happened, 
in  a  house  that  their  father's  crimes  had  forfeited  to 
his  victims,  while  plenty  of  honest  people  did  not  know 
where  they  were  going  to  sleep  that  night,  or  where 
the  next  mouthful  of  victuals  was  to  come  from.  It 
was  not  really  the  houseless  and  the  hungry  who  com 
plained  of  this  injustice ;  it  was  not  even  those  who 
toiled  for  their  daily  bread  in  the  Hatboro'  shops 
who  said  such  things.  They  were  too  busy,  and  then 
too  tired,  to  think  much  about  them,  and  the  noise 
of  Northwick's  misdeeds  died  first  amid  the  din  of 
machinery.  It  was  in  the  close,  stove-heated  parlors 
of  the  respectable  citizens,  behind  the  windows  that 
had  so  long  commanded  envious  views  of  the  North- 
wicks  going  by  in  their  carriages  and  sledges,  and 
among  women  of  leisure  and  conscience,  that  his  in 
famy  endured,  and  that  the  injuries  of  his  creditors 
cried  out  for  vengeance  on  those  daughters  of  his ; 
they  had  always  thought  themselves  too  good  to  speak 
to  other  folks.  Such  women  could  not  understand 
what  the  Ponkwasset  Mills  Company  meant  by  not 
turning  those  girls  right  out  of  doors,  and  perhaps  they 
could  not  have  been  taught  why  the  company  had  no 
power  to  do  this,  or  why  the  president,  at  least,  had 
no  wish  to  do  it.  When  they  learned  that  his  family 
still  kept  up  friendly  relations  with  the  Northwick 
girls,  they  were  not  without  their  suspicions,  which 


180  TIIK    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

were  not  long  in  becoming  their  express  belief,  that 
the  Hilarys  were  sharing  in  the  booty.  They  were 
not  cruel,  and  would  not  really  have  liked  to  see  the 
Northwick  girls  suffer,  if  it  had  come  to  that ;  but 
they  were  greedy  of  the  vengeance  promised  upon  the 
wicked,  and  they  had  no  fear  of  judging  or  of  meting 
with  the  fullest  measure. 

In  the  freer  air  of  the  streets  and  stores  and  offices, 
their  husbands  were  not  so  eager.  In  fact,  it  might 
be  said  that  no  man  was  ea^er  but  Gerrish.  After  the 

O 

first  excitement,  and  the  successive  shocks  of  sensation 
imparted  by  the  newspapers  had  passed,  there  came 
over  the  men  of  Hatboro'  a  sort  of  resignation  which 
might  or  might  not  be  regarded  as  proof  of  a  general 
demoralization.  The  defalcation  had  startled  them, 
but  it  could  not  be  said  to  have  surprised  any  one ;  it 
was  to  be  expected  of  a  man  in  Northwick's  position ; 
it  happened  every  day  somewhere,  and  the  day  had 
come  when  it  should  happen  there.  They  did  not  say 
God  was  good  and  that  Mahomet  was  His  prophet, 
but  they  were  fatalists  all  the  same.  They  accepted 
the  accomplished  fact,  and,  reflecting  that  the  disaster 
did  not  really  concern  them,  many  of  them  regarded 
it  dispassionately,  even  jocosely.  They  did  not  care 
for  a  lot  of  rich  people  in  Boston  who  had  been  sup 
plying  Northwick  with  funds  to  gamble  in  stocks ;  it 
was  not  as  if  the  Hatboro'  bank  had  been  wrecked, 
and  hard-working  folks  had  lost  their  deposits.  They 
could  look  at  the  matter  with  an  impartial  eye,  and  in 
their  hearts  they  obscurely  believed  that  any  member 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  181 

of  the  Ponkwasset  Company  would  have  done  the 
same  thing  as  North  wick  if  he  had  got  the  chance. 
Beyond  that  they  were  mostly  interested  in  the  ques 
tion  whether  Northwick  had  perished  in  the  railroad 
accident,  or  had  put  up  a  job  on  the  public,  and  was 
possessing  his  soul  in  peace  somewhere  in  Rogue's 
Rest,  as  Putney  called  the  Dominion  of  Canada. 
Putney  represented  the  party  in  favor  of  Northwick's 
survival ;  and  Gates,  the  provision  man,  led  the  oppo 
site  faction.  When  Putney  dropped  in  to  order  his 
marketing,  he  usually  said  something  like,  "  Well, 
Joel,  how's  cremation,  this  morning  ?  " 

"  Just  booming,  Squire.  That  stock's  coming  up, 
right  along.  Bound  to  be  worth  a  hundred  cents  on 
the  dollar  before  hayin',  3ret."  This,  or  something  like 
it,  was  what  Gates  usually  answered,  but  one  morning 
he  asked,  "  Heard  how  it  stands  with  the  Poukwasset 
folks,  I  suppose  ?  They  say  —  paper  does  —  that  the 
reason  the  president  hung  off  from  making  a  complaint 
was  that  he  didn't  rightly  see  how  he  could  have  the 
ashes  indicted.  He  believes  in  it,  any  way." 

"  Well,"  said  Putney,  "  the  fathers  of  New  England 
all  died  in  the  blessed  hope  of  infant  damnation.  But 
that  didn't  prove  it." 

"That's  something  so,  Squire.  Guess  you  got  me 
there,"  said  Gates. 

"  I  can  understand  old  Hilary's  not  wanting  to  push 
the  thing,  under  the  circumstances,  and  I  don't  blame 
him.  But  the  law  must  have  its  course.  Hilary's 
got  his  duty  to  do.  /don't  want  to  do  it  for  him." 


XXI. 

HILARY  could  not  help  himself,  though  when  he 
took  the  legal  steps  he  was  obliged  to,  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  was  wilfully  urging  on  the  persecution  of 
that  poor  young  girl  and  that  poor  old  maid.  It  was 
really  ghastly  to  go  through  the  form  of  indicting  a 
man  who,  so  far  as  any  one  could  prove  to  the  con 
trary,  had  passed  with  his  sins  before  the  tribunal  that 
searches  hearts  and  judges  motives  rather  than  acts. 
But  still  the  processes  had  to  go  on,  and  Plilary  had 
to  prompt  them.  It  was  all  talked  over  in  Hilary's 
family,  where  he  was  pitied  and  forgiven  in  that  affec 
tion  which  keeps  us  simple  and  sincere  in  spite  of 
the  masks  we  wear  to  the  world.  His  wife  and  his 
children  knew  how  kind  he  was,  and  how  much  he 
suffered  in  this  business  which,  from  the  first,  he  had 
tried  to  be  so  lenient  in.  When  he  wished  to  talk  of 
it,  they  all  agreed  that  Matt  must  not  vex  him  with 
his  theories  and  his  opinions ;  and  when  he  did  not 
talk  of  it,  no  one  must  mention  it. 

Hilary  felt  the  peculiar  hardships  of  his  position, 
all  the  more^  keenly  because  he  had  a  conscience  that 
would  not  permit  him  to  shirk  his  duty.  He  had 
used  his  influence,  the  weight  of  his  character  and 
business  repute,  to  control  the  action  of  the  Board 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  183 

towards  Northwick,  when  the  defalcation  became 
known,  and  now  he  was  doubly  bound  to  respond  to 
the  wishes  of  the  directors  in  proceeding  against  him. 
Most  of  them  believed  that  Northwick  was  still  alive ; 
those  who  were  not  sure  regarded  it  as  a  public  duty 
to  have  him  indicted  at  any  rate,  and  they  all  voted 
that  Hilary  should  make  the  necessary  complaint. 
Then  Hilary  had  no  choice  but  to  obey.  Another  man 
in  his  place  might  have  resigned,  but  he  could  not,  for 
he  knew  that  he  was  finally  responsible  for  North- 
wick's  escape. 

He  made  it  no  less  his  duty  to  find  out  just  how 
much  hardship  it  would  work  Northwick's  daughters, 
and  he  tried  to  lend  them  money.  But  Suzette  an 
swered  for  both  that  her  father  had  left  them  some 
money  when  he  went  away ;  and  Hilary  could  only 
send  Louise  to  explain  how  he  must  formally  appear 
in  the  legal  proceedings ;  he  allowed  Louise  to  put 
whatever  warmth  of  color  she  wished  into  his  regrets 
and  into  his  advice  that  they  should  consult  a  lawyer. 
It  was  not  business-like ;  if  it  were  generally  known 
it  might  be  criticised ;  but  in  the  last  resort,  with  a 
thing  like  that,  Hilary  felt  that  he  could  always  tell 
his  critics  to  go  to  the  deuce,  and  fall  back  upon  a  good 
conscience. 

It  seemed  to  Louise,  at  first,  that  Suzette  was  un 
willing  to  separate  her  father  from  his  office,  or  fully 
to  appreciate  his  forbearance.  She  treated  her  own 
father's  course  as  something  above  suspicion,  as  some 
thing  which  he  was  driven  to  by  enemies,  whom  he 


184  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

would  soon  have  returned  to  put  to  confusion,  if  lie 
had  lived.  It  made  no  difference  to  her  and  Adeline 
what  was  done ;  their  father  was  safe,  now,  and  some 
day  his  name  would  be  cleared.  Adeline  added  that 
they  were  in  the  home  where  he  had  left  them ;  it  was 
their  house,  and  no  one  could  take  it  from  them. 

Louise  compassionately  assented  to  everything.  She 
thought  Suzette  migh't  have  been  a  little  more  cordial 
in  the  way  she  received  her  father's  regrets.  But  she 
remembered  that  Suzette  was  always  undemonstrative, 
and  she  did  not  blame  her,  after  her  first  disappoint 
ment.  She  could  see  the  sort  of  neglect  that  was  al 
ready  falling  upon  the  house,  the  expression  in  house 
keeping  terms  of  the  despair  that  was  in  their  minds. 
The  sisters  did  not  cry,  but  Louise  cried  a  good  deal 
in  pity  for  their  forlornness,  and  at  last  her  tears 
softened  them  into  something  like  compassion  for 
themselves.  They  had  her  stay  to  lunch  rather 
against  her  will,  but  she  thought  she  had  better  stay. 
The  lunch  was  so  badly  cooked  and  so  meagre  that 
Louise  fancied  they  were  beginning  to  starve  them 
selves,  and  wanted  to  cry  into  her  tea-cup.  The 
woman  who  waited  wore  such  dismal  black,  and  went 
about  with  her  eyes  staring  and  her  mouth  tightly 
pursed,  and  smelt  faintly  of  horses.  It  was  Mrs. 
Newton ;  she  had  let  Louise  in  when  she  came,  and 
she  was  the  only  servant  whom  the  girl  saw. 

Suzette  said  nothing  about  their  plans  for  the  fu 
ture,  and  Louise  did  not  like  to  ask  her.  She  felt  as 
if  she  was  received  under  a  flag  of  truce,  and  that 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          185 

there  could  be  no  confidence  between  them.  Both  of 
the  sisters  seemed  to  stand  on  the  defensive  with 
her  ;  but  when  she  started  to  come  away,  Suzette  put 
on  her  hat  and  jacket,  and  said  she  would  go  to  the 
avenue  gate  with  her,  and  meet  Simpson,  who  was 
coming  to  take  Louise  back  to  the  station. 

It  was  a  clear  day  of  middle  March ;  the  sun  rode 
high  in  a  blue  sky,  and  some  jays  bragged  and  jeered 
in  the  spruces.  The  frost  was  not  yet  out  of  the 
ground,  but  the  shaded  road  was  dry  underfoot. 

They  talked  at  arm's  length  of  the  weather  ;  and 
then  Suzette  said  abruptly,  "  Of  course,  Louise,  your 
father  will  have  to  do  what  they  want  him  to,  against 
—  papa.  I  understand  that." 

"Oh,  Sue—" 

"Don't!  I  should  wish  him  to  know  that  I  wasn't 
stupid  about  it." 

"  I'm  sure,"  Louise  adventured,  "  he  would  do  any 
thing  to  help  you: " 

Suzette  put  by  the  feeble  expression  of  mere  good 
feeling.  "  We  don't  believe  papa  has  done  anything 
wrong,  or  anything  he  wouldn't  have  made  right  if  he 
had  lived.  We  shall  not  let  them  take  his  property 
from  us  if  we  can  help  it." 

"  Of  course  not !     I'm  sure  papa  wouldn't  wish  you 

to." 

"  It  would  be  confessing  that  they  were  right,  and 
we  will  never  do  that.  But  I  don't  blame  your  father, 
and  I  want  him  to  know  it." 

Louise  stopped  short  and  kissed  Suzette.     In  her 


186  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

affectionate  optimism  it  seemed  to  her  for  the  moment 
that  all  the  trouble  was  over  now,  She  had  never 
realized  anything  hopelessly  wrong  in  the  affair  ;  it 
was  like  a  misunderstanding  that  could  be  explained 
away,  if  the  different  people  would  listen  to  reason. 

Sue  released  herself,  and  said,  looking  away  from 
her  friend  :  "  It  has  been  hard.  He  is  dead ;  but  we 
haven't  even  been  allowed  to  see  him  laid  in  the 
grave." 

"  Oh,  perhaps,"  Louise  sobbed  out,  "  he  isn't  dead  ! 
So  many  people  think  he  isn't  —  " 

Suzette  drew  away  from  her  in  stern  offence.  "  Do 
you  think  that  if  he  were  alive  he  would  leave  us 
without  a  word  —  a  sign  ?  " 

"  No,  no !  He  couldn't  be  so  cruel  !  I  didn't 
mean  that !  He  is  dead,  and  I  shall  always  say  it." 

They  walked  on  without  speaking,  but  at  the  gate 
Suzette  offered  to  return  Louise's  embrace.  The  tears 
stood  in  her  eyes,  as  she  said,  "  I  would  like  to  send 
my  love  to  your  mother  —  if  she  would  care  for  it." 

"  Care  for  it !  " 

"And  tell  your  brother  I  can  never  forget  what  he 
did  for  us." 

"  He  can  never  forget  that  you  let  him  do  it,"  said 
Louise,  with  eager  gratitude.  "  He  would  have  liked 
to  come  with  me,  if  he  hadn't  thought  it  might  seem 
intrusive." 

"  Intrusive!  Your  brother!  "  Sue  spoke  the  words 
as  if  Matt  were  of  some  superior  order  of  beings. 

The   intensity  of  feeling   she   put   into    her  voice 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.          187 

brought  another  gush  of  tears  into  Louise's  eyes. 
"  Matt  is  good.  And  I  will  tell  him  what  you  say. 
He  will  like  to  hear  it."  They  looked  down  the  road, 
but  they  could  not  see  Simpson  coming  yet.  "  Don't 
wait,  Sue,"  she  pleaded.  "  Do  go  back !  You  will 
be  all  worn  out." 

"No,  I  will  stay  till  your  carriage  comes,"  said 
Suzette  ;  and  they  remained  a  moment  silent  together. 

Then  Louise  said,  "  Matt  has  got  a  new  fad  :  a 
young  man  that  writes  on  the  newspapers  —  " 

"  The  newspapers !  "  Suzette  repeated  with  an  inti 
mation  of  abhorrence. 

"  Oh,  but  he  isn't  like  the  others,"  Louise  hastened 
to  explain.  "Very  handsome,  and  interesting,  and 
pale,  and  sick.  He  is  going  to  be  a  poet,  but  he's  had 
to  be  a  reporter.  He's  awfully  clever ;  but  Matt  says 
he's  awfully  poor,  and  he  has  had  such  a  hard  time. 
Now  they  think  he  won't  have  to  interview  people 
any  more  —  he  came  to  interview  papa,  the  first  time; 
and  poor  papa  was  very  blunt  with  him ;  and  then  so 
sorry,  He's  got  some  other  kind  of  newspaper  place ; 
I  don't  know  what.  Matt  liked  what  he  wrote  about 
—  about,  your  —  troubles,  Sue." 

"Where  was  it  ?"  asked  Sue.  "They  were  all 
wickedly  false  and  cruel." 

"  His  wasn't  cruel.     It  was  in  the  Abstract." 

"Yes,  I  remember.  But  he  said  papa  had  taken 
the  money,"  Sue  answered  unrelentingly. 

"  Did  he  ?  I  thought  he  only  said  if  he  did.  I 
don't  believe  he  said  more.  Matt  wouldn't  have  liked 


188  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

it  so  much  if  he  had.  He's  in  such  bad  health.  But 
he's  awfully  clever." 

The  hack  came  in  sight  over  the  rise  of  ground, 
with  Simpson  driving  furiously,  as  he  always  did 
when  he  saw  people.  Louise  threw  her  arms  round 
her  friend  again.  "Let  me  go  hack  and  stay  with 
you,  Sue !  Or,  come  home  with  me,  you  and  Miss 
Northwick.  We  shall  all  be  so  glad  to  have  you,  and 
I  hate  so  to  leave  you  here  alone.  It  seems  so  dread 
ful  ! " 

"Yes.  But  it's  easier  to  bear  it  here  than  any 
where  else.  Some  day  all  the  falsehood  will  be 
cleared  up,  and  then  we  shall  be  glad  that  we  bore 
it  where  he  left  us.  We  have  decided  what  we  shall 
do,  Adeline  and  I.  We  shall  try  to  let  the  house 
furnished  for  the  summer,  and  live  in  the  lodge  here." 

Louise  looked  round  at  the  cottage  by  the  avenue 
gate,  arid  said  it  would  be  beautiful. 

"We've  never  used  it  for  any  one,  yet,"  Suzette 
continued,  "  and  we  can  move  back  into  the  house  in 
the  winter." 

This  again  seemed  to  Louise  an  admirable  notion, 
and  she  parted  from  her  friend  in  more  comfort  than 
she  could  have  imagined  when  they  met.  She  car 
ried  her  feeling  of  elation  home  with  her,  and  was 
able  to  report  Sue  in  a  state  of  almost  smiling  pros 
perity,  and  of  perfect  resignation,  if  not  acquiescence, 
in  whatever  the  company  should  make  Hilary  do. 
She  figured  her  father,  in  his  reluctance,  as  a  sort  of 
ally  of  the  Northwicks,  and  she  was  disappointed  that 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  189 

he  seemed  to  derive  so  .little  pleasure  from  Sue's  ap 
proval.  But  he  generally  approved  of  all  that  she 
could  remember  to  have  said  for  him  to  the  North- 
wicks,  though  he  did  not  show  himself  so  appreciative 
of  the  situation  as  Matt.  She  told  her  brother  what 
Sue  had  said.when  she  heard  of  his  unwillingness  to 
intrude  upon  her,  and  she  added  that  now  he  must 
certainly  go  to  see  her. 


XXII. 

A  DAY  or  two  later,  when  Matt  Hilary  went  to 
Hatboro',  he  found  Wade  in  his  study  at  the  church, 
and  he  lost  no  time  in  asking  him,  "  Wade,  what  do 
you  know  of  the  Miss  Northwicks  ?  Have  you  seen 
them  lately  ?  " 

Wade  told  him  how  little  he  had  seen  Miss  North- 
wick,  and  how  he  had  not  seen  Suzette  at  all.  Then 
Matt  said,  "  I  don't  know  why  I  asked  you,  because  I 
knew  all  this  from  Louise  ;  she  was  up  here  the  other 
day,  and  they  told  her.  What  I  am  really  trying  to 
get  at  is,  whether  you  know  anything  more  about  how 
that  affair  with  Jack  Wilmington  stands.  Do  you 
know  whether  he  has  tried  to  see  her  since  the  trouble 
about  her  father  came  out  ?  " 

Adeline  Northwick  had  dropped  from  the  question, 
as  usual,  and  it  really  related  so  wholly  to  Suzette  in 
the  thoughts  of  both  the  young  men,  that  neither  of 
them  found  it  necessary  to  limit  it  explicitly. 

"  I  feel  quite  sure  he  hasn't/'  said  Wade,  "  though 
I  can't  answer  positively." 

"  Then  that  settles  it!  "  Matt  walked  away  to  one 
of  Wade's  gothic  windows,  and  looked  out.  When 
he  turned  and  came  back  to  his  friend,  he  said,  "  If 
he  had  ever  been  in  earnest  about  her,  I  think  he 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  191 

would    have  tried  to  see  her  at   such   a  time,    don't 
you  ?  " 

"  I  can't  imagine  his  not  doing  it.     I  never  thought 
him  a  cad." 
"  No,  nor  I." 

"  He  would  have  done  it  unless  —  unless  that 
woman  has  some  hold  that  gives  her  command  of  him. 
He's  shown  great  weakness,  to  say  the  least.  But  I 
don't  believe  there's  anything  worse.  What  do  the 
village  people  believe  ?  " 

"  All  sorts  of  lurid  things,  some  of  them  ;  others  be 
lieve  that  the  affair  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  it 
appears  to  be.  It's  a  thing  that  could  be  just  what  it 
is  in  no  other  country  in  the  world.  It's  the  phase 
that  our  civilization  has  contributed  to  the  physiog 
nomy  of  scandal,  just  as  the  exile  of  the  defaulter  is 
the  phase  we  have  contributed  to  the  physiognomy  of 
crime.  Public  opinion  here  isn't  severe  upon  Mrs. 
Wilmington  or  Mr.  Northwick." 

"  I'm  not  prepared  to  quarrel  with  it  on  that  ac 
count,"  said  Matt,  with  the  philosophical  serenity 
which  might  easily  be  mistaken  for  irony  in  him. 
"  The  book  we  get  our  religion  from  teaches  leniency 
in  the  judgment  of  others." 

« It  doesn't  teach  cynical  indifference,"  Wade  sug 
gested. 

"  Perhaps  that  isn't  what  people  feel,"  said  Matt. 
"  I  don't  know.     Sometimes  I  dread  to  think  how 
deeply  our  demoralization  goes  in  certain  directions." 
Matt  did  not  follow  the  lure  to  that  sort  of  specula- 


13 


192  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

tive  inquiry  he  and  Wade  were  fond  of.  He  said, 
with  an  abrupt  return  to  the  personal  ground  :  u  Then 
you  don't  think  Jack  Wilmington  need  be  any  further 
considered  in  regard  to  her  ?  " 

"  In  regard  to  Miss  Sue  Northwick  ?  I  don't  know 
whether  I  quite  understand  what  you  mean." 

"  I  mean,  is  it  anybody's  duty  —  yours  or  mine  — 
to  go  to  the  man  and  find  him  out ;  what  he  really 
thinks,  what  he  really  feels  ?  I  don't  mean,  make  an 
appeal  to  him.  That  would  be  unworthy  of  her.  But 
perhaps  he's  holding  back  from  a  mistaken  feeling  of 
delicacy,  of  remorse ;  when  if  he  could  be  made  to 
see  that  it  was  his  right,  his  privilege,  to  be  everything 
to  her  now  that  a  man  could  be  to  a  woman,  and  in 
finitely  more  than  any  man  could  hope  to  be  to  a  happy 
or  fortunate  woman  — •  What  do  you  think  ?  He  could 
be  reparation,  protection,  safety,  everything !  " 

Wade  shook  his  head.  "  It  would  be  useless.  Wil 
mington  knows  very  well  that  such  a  girl  would  never 
let  him  be  anything  to  her  now  when  he  had  slighted 
her  fancy  for  him  before.  Even  if  he  were  ever  in 
love  with  her,  which  I  doubt,  he  couldn't  do  it." 

"No,  I  suppose  not,"  said  Matt.  After  a  little 
pause,  he  added,  "  Then  I  must  go  myself." 

"  Go,  yourself  ?  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  Wade 
asked. 

"  Some  one  must  try  to  make  them  understand  just 
how  they  are  situated.  I  don't  think  Louise  did ;  I 
don't  think  she  knew  herself,  how  the  legal  proceed 
ings  would  affect  them  ;  and  I  think  I'd  better  go  and 
make  it  perfectly  clear." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  193 

"  I  can  imagine  it  won't  be  pleasant,"  said  Wade. 

"  No,"  said  Matt,  "  I  don't  expect  that.  But  I  in 
ferred,  from  what  she  said  to  Louise,  that  she  would 
be  willing  to  see  me,  and  I  think  I  had  better  go." 

He  put  his  conviction  interrogatively,  and  "Wade 
said  heartily,  "  Why,  of  course.  It's  the  only  thing," 
and  Matt  went  away  with  a  face  which  was  cheerful 
with  good- will,  if  not  the  hope  of  pleasure. 

He  met  Suzette  in  the  avenue,  dressed  for  walking, 
and  coming  forward  with  the  magnificent,  haughty 
movement  she  had.  As  she  caught  sight  of  him,  she 
started,  and  then  almost  ran  toward  him.  "  Oh  ! 
You !  "  she  said,  and  she  shrank  back  a  little,  and 
then  put  her  hand  impetuously  out  to  him. 

He  took  it  in  his  two,  and  bubbled  out,  "  Are  you 
walking  somewhere  ?  Are  you  well  ?  Is  your  sister 
at  home  ?  Don't  let  me  keep  you  !  May  I  walk 
with  you  ?  " 

Her  smile  clouded.  "  I'm  only  walking  here  in  the 
avenue.  How  is  Louise  ?  Did  she  get  home  safely  ? 
It  was  good  of  her  to  come  here.  It  isn't  the  place 
for  a  gay  visit." 

"  Oh,  Miss  Northwick  !  It  was  good  of  you  to  see 
her.  And  we  were  very  happy — relieved  —  to  find 
that  you  didn't  feel  aggrieved  with  any  of  us  for  what 
must  happen.  And  I  hope  you  don't  feel  that  I've 
taken  an  advantage  of  your  kindness  in  coming  ?  " 

«  Oh,  no  !  " 

"I've  just  been  to  see  Wade."  Matt  reddened 
consciously.  "  But  it  doesn't  seem  quite  fair  to  have 


194  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

met  you  where    you   had  no   choice  but   to  receive 
me!  " 

"I  walk  here  every  morning,"  she  returned,  eva 
sively.  "  I  have  nowhere  else.  I  never  go  out  of 
the  avenue.  Adeline  goes  to  the  village,  sometimes. 
But  I  can't  meet  people." 

"  I  know,"  said  Matt,  with  caressing  sympathy  ; 
and  his  head  swam  in  the  sudden  desire  to  take  her  in 
his  arms,  and  shelter  her  from  that  shame  and  sorrow 
preying  upon  her.  Her  eyes  had  a  trouble  in  them 
that  made  him  ache  with  pity ;  he  recognized,  as  he 
had  not  before,  that  they  were  the  translation  in  femi 
nine  terms,  of  her  father's  eyes.  "  Poor  Wade,"  he 
went  on,  without  well  knowing  what  he  was  saying, 
"  told  me  that  he  —  he  was  very  sorry  he  had  not 
been  able  to  see  you  —  to  do  anything  —  " 

"  What  would  have  been  the  use  ?  No  one  can  do 
anything.  We  must  bear  our  burden  ;  but  we  needn't 
add  to  it  by  seeing  people  who  believe  that  —  that  my 
father  did  wrong." 

Matt's  breath  almost  left  him.  He  perceived  that 
the  condition  on  which  she  was  bearing  her  sorrow 
was  the  refusal  of  her  shame.  Perhaps  it  could  not 
have  been  possible  for  one  of  her  nature  to  accept  it, 
and  it  required  no  effort  in  her  to  frame  the  theory 
of  her  father's  innocence ;  perhaps  no  other  hypothe 
sis  was  possible  to  her,  and  evidence  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  truth  as  she  felt  it. 

"  The  greatest  comfort  we  have  is  that  none  of  you 
believe  it ;  and  your  father  knew  my  father  better 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  195 

than  any  one  else.  I  was  afraid  I  didn't  make  Louise 
understand  how  much  I  felt  that,  and  how  much  Ade 
line  did.  It  was  hard  to  tell  her,  without  seeming  to 
thank  you  for  something  that  was  no  more  than  my 
father's  due.  But  we  do  feel  it,  both  of  us ;  and  I 
would  like  your  father  to  know  it.  I  don't  blame  him 
for  what  he  is  going  to  do.  It's  necessary  to  establish 
my  father's  innocence  to  have  the  trial.  I  was  very 
unjust  to  your  father  that  first  day,  when  I  thought 
he  believed  those  things  against  papa.  We  appreciate 
his  kindness  in  every  way,  but  we  shall  not  get  any 
lawyer  to  defend  us." 

Matt  was  helplessly  silent  before  this  wild  confusion 
of  perfect  trust  and  hopeless  error.  He  would  not 
have  known  where  to  begin  to  set  her  right ;  he  did 
not  see  how  he  could  speak  a  word  without  wounding 
her  through  her  love,  her  pride. 

She  hurried  on,  walking  swiftly,  as  if  to  keep  up 
with  the  rush  of  her  freed  emotions.  "  We  are  not 
afraid  but  that  it  will  come  out  so  that  our  father's 
name,  who  was  always  so  perfectly  upright,  and  so 
good  to  every  one,  will  be  cleared,  and  those  who  have 
accused  him  so  basely  will  be  punished  as  they  de 
serve." 

She  had  so  wholly  misconceived  the  situation  and 
the  character  of  the  impending  proceedings  that  it 
would  not  have  been  possible  to  explain  it  all  to  her ; 
but  he  could  not  leave  her  in  her  error,  and  he  made 
at  last  an  effort  to  enlighten  her. 

"  I  think  my  father  was  right  in  advising  you  to 


19 G  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

see  a  lawyer.  It  won't  be  a  question  of  the  charges 
against  your  father's  integrity,  but  of  his  solvency. 
The  proceedings  will  be  against  his  estate  ;  and  you 
mustn't  allow  yourselves  to  be  taken  at  a  disadvan 
tage." 

She  stopped.  "  What  do  we  care  for  the  estate,  if 
his  good  name  isn't  cleared  up  ?  " 

"I'm  afraid — I'm  afraid,"  Matt  entreated,  "that 
you  don't  exactly  understand." 

"If  my  father  never  meant  to  keep  the  money, 
then  the  trial  will  show,"  the  girl  returned. 

"  But  a  lawyer  —  indeed  you  ought  to  see  a  lawyer ! 
—  could  explain  how  such  a  trial  would  leave  that 
question  where  it  was.  It  wouldn't  be  the  case  against 
your  father,  but  against  you" 

"  Against  us  ?     What  do  they  say  we  have  done  ?  " 

Matt  could  have  laughed  at  her  heroic  misappre 
hension  of  the  affair,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  pity 
of  it.  "Nothing!  Nothing!  But  they  can  take 
everything  here  that  belonged  to  your  father  —  every 
thing  on  the  place,  to  satisfy  his  creditors.  The  ques 
tion  of  his  wrong-doing  won't  enter.  I  can't  tell  you 
how.  But  you  ought  to  have  a  lawyer  who  would 
defend  your  rights  in  the  case." 

"If  they  don't  pretend  we've  done  anything  then 
they  can't  do  anything  to  us !  " 

"  They  can  take  everything  your  father  had  in  the 
world  to  pay  his  debts." 

"  Then  let  them  take  it,"  said  the  girl.  "  If  he  had 
Jived  he  would  have  paid  them.  We  will  never  admit 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          197 

that  he  did  anything  for  us  to  be  ashamed  of  ;  that  he 
ever  wilfully  wronged  any  one." 

Matt  could  see  that  the  profession  of  her  father's 
innocence  was  essential  to  her.  He  could  not  know 
how  much  of  it  was  voluntary,  a  pure  effect  of  will,  in. 
fulfilment  of  the  demands  of  her  pride,  and  how  much 
was  real  belief.  He  only  knew  that,  whatever  it  was, 
his  wish  was  not  to  wound  her  or  to  molest  her  in  it, 
but  to  leave  what  should  be  sacred  from  human  touch 
to  the  mystery  that  we  call  providence.  It  might 
have  been  this  very  anxiety  that  betrayed  him,  for  a 
glance  at  his  face  seemed  to  stay  her. 

"  Don't  you  think  I  am  right,  Mr.  Hilary  ?  " 

"Yes,  yes !  "  Matt  began ;  and  he  was  going  to  say 
that  she  was  right  in  every  way,  but  he  found  that  his 
own  truth  was  sacred  to  him  as  well  as  her  fiction, 
and  he  said,  "I've  no  right  to  judge  your  father.  It's 
the  last  thing  I  should  be  willing  to  do.  I  certainly 
don't  believe  he  ever  wished  to  wrong  any  one  if  he 
could  have  helped  it." 

"  Thank  you  !  "  said  the  girl.  "  That  was  not 
what  I  asked  you.  I  know  what  my  father  meant  to 
do,  arid  I  didn't  need  any  reassurance.  I'm  sorry  to 
have  troubled  you  with  all  these  irrelevant  questions ; 
and  I  thank  you  very  much  for  the  kind  advice  you 
have  given  me." 

"  Oh,  don't  take  it  so  !  "  he  entreated,  simply.  "  I 
do  wish  to  be  of  use  to  you  —  all  the  use  that  the  best 
friend  in  the  world  can  be ;  and  I  see  that  I  have 
wounded  you.  Don't  take  my  words  amiss  ;  I'm  sure 


198  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

you  couldn't  take  my  will  so,  if  you  knew  it !  If  the 
worst  that  anybody  has  said  about  your  father  were 
ten  times  true,  it  couldn't  change  my  will,  or  — "  ( 
"Thank  you!  Thank  you!"  she  said  perversely. 
"  I  don't  think  we  understand  each  other,  Mr.  Hilary. 
It's  scarcely  worth  while  to  try.  I  think  I  must  say 
good-by.  My  sister  will  be  expecting  me."  She 
nodded,  and  he  stood  aside,  lifting  his  hat.  She 
dashed  by  him,  and  he  remained  staring  after  her  till 
she  vanished  in  the  curve  of  the  avenue.  She  sud 
denly  reappeared,  and  came  quickly  back  toward  him. 
"  I  wanted  to  say  that,  no  matter  what  you  think  or 
say,  I  shall  never  forget  what  you  have  done,  and  I 
shall  always  be  grateful  for  it."  She  launched  these 
words  fiercely  at  him,  as  if  they  were  a  form  of  defi 
ance,  and  then  whirled  away,  and  was  quickly  lost  to 
sight  again. 


XXIII. 

THAT  evening  Adeline  said  to  her  sister,  at  the  end 
of  the  meagre  dinner  they  allowed  themselves  in  these 
days,  "  Elbridge  says  the  hay  is  giving  out,  and  we 
have  got  to  do  something  about  those  horses  that  are 
eating  their  heads  off  in  the  barn.  And  the  cows : 
there's  hardly  any  feed  for  them." 

"We  must  take  some  of  the  money  and  buy  feed," 
said  Suzette,  passively.  Adeline  saw  by  her  eyes  that 
she  had  been  crying ;  she  did  not  ask  her  why  ;  each 
knew  why  the  other  cried. 

"  I'm  afraid  to,"  said  the  elder  sister.  "  It's  going 
so  fast,  as  it  is,  that  I  don't  know  what  we  shall  do 
pretty  soon.  I  think  we  ought  to  sell  some  of  the 
cattle." 

"  We  can't.    We  don't  know  whether  they're  ours." 

"  Not  ours  ?  " 

"  They  may  belong  to  the  creditors.  We  must  wait 
till  the  trial  is  over." 

Adeline  made  no  answer.  They  had  disputed 
enough  about  that  trial,  which  they  understood  so 
little.  Adeline  had  always  believed  they  ought  to 
speak  to  a  lawyer  about  it ;  but  Suzette  had  not  been 
willing.  Even  when  a  man  came  that  morning  with  a 
paper  which  he  said  was  an  attachment,  and  left  it 


200  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

with  them,  they  had  not  agreed  to  ask  advice.  For 
one  thing,  they  did  not  know  whom  to  ask.  Northwick 
had  a  lawyer  in  Boston  ;  but  they  had  been  left  to  the 
ignorance  in  which  most  women  live  concerning  such 
matters,  and  they  did  not  know  his  name. 

Now  Adeline  resolved  to  act  upon  a  plan  of  her 
own  that  she  had  kept  from  Suzette  because  she 
thought  Suzette  would  not  like  it.  Her  sister  went  to 
her  room  after  dinner,  and  then  Adeline  put  on  her 
things  and  let  herself  softly  out  into  the  night.  She 
took  that  paper  the  man  had  left,  and  she  took  the 
deeds  of  the  property  which  her  father  had  given  her 
soon  after  her  mother  died,  while  Sue  was  a  little  girl. 
He  said  that  the  deeds  were  recorded,  and  that  she 
could  keep  them  safely  enough,  and  she  had  kept  them 
ever  since  in  the  box  where  her  old  laces  were,  and 
her  mother's  watch,  that  had  never  been  wound  up 
since  her  death. 

Adeline  was  not  afraid  of  the  dark  on  the  road  or 
in  the  lonely  village-streets  ;  but  when  she  rang  at  the 
lawyer  Putney's  door,  her  heart  beat  so  with  fright 
that  it  seemed  as  if  it  must  jump  out  of  her  mouth. 
She  came  to  him  because  she  had  always  heard 
that,  in  spite  of  his  sprees,  he  was  the  smartest  law 
yer  in  Hatboro'  ;  and  she  believed  that  he  could 
protect  their  rights  if  any  one  could.  At  the  same 
time  she  wished  justice  to  be  done,  though  they 
should  suffer,  and  she  came  to  Putney,  partly  because 
she  knew  he  had  always  disliked  her  father,  and 
she  reasoned  that  such  a  man  would  be  less  likely  to 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  201 

advise  her  against  the  right  in  her  interest    than  a 
friendlier  person. 

Putney  came  to  the  door  himself,  as  he  was  apt  to 
do  at  night,  when  he  was  in  the  house,  and  she  saw 
him  control  his  surprise  at  sight  of  her.  "  Can  I  see 

see see    you   a   moment,"   she    stammered   out, 

"  about  some  —  some  law  business  ?  " 

"Certainly,"  said  Putney,  with  grave  politeness. 
"  Will  you  come  in  ?  "  He  led  the  way  into  the  par 
lor,  where  he  was  reading  when  she  rang,  and  placed 
a  chair  for  her,  and  then  shut  the  parlor  door,  and 
waited  for  her  to  offer  him  the  papers  that  rattled  in 
her  nervous  clutch. 

" It's  this  one  that  I  want  to  show  you  first,"  she 
said,  and  she  gave  him  the  writ  of  attachment.  "  A 
man  left  it  this  noon,  and  we  don't  know  what  it 
means." 

"It  means,"  said  Putney,  "that  your  father's  credi 
tors  have  brought  suit  against  his  estate,  and  have  at 
tached  his  property  so  that  you  cannot  sell  it,  or  put  it 
out  of  your  hands  in  any  way.  If  the  court  declares 
him  insolvent,  then  everything  belonging  to  him  must 
go  to  pay  his  debts." 

"  But  what  can  we  do  ?  We  can't  buy  anything  to 
feed  the  stock,  and  they  will  suffer,"  cried  Adeline. 

"I  don't  think  long,"  said  Putney.  "Some  one 
will  be  put  in  charge  of  the  place,  and  then  the  stock 
will  be  taken  care  of  by  the  creditors." 

"  And  will  they  turn  us  out  ?  Can  they  take  our 
house  ?  It  is  our  house  —  mine  and  my  sister's  ;  here 


202  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

are  the  deeds  that  my  father  gave  me  long  ago ;  and 
he  said  they  were  recorded.''  Her  voice  grew  shrill. 

Putney  took  the  deeds,  and  glanced  at  the  recorder's 
endorsement  before  he  read  them.  He  seemed  to 
Adeline  a  long  time ;  and  she  had  many  fears  till 
he  handed  them  back  to  her.  "  The  land,  and  the 
houses,  and  all  the  buildings  are  yours  and  your  sis 
ter's,  Miss  Northwick,  and  your  father's  creditors  can't 
touch  them." 

The  tears  started  from  Adeline's  eyes ;  she  fell 
weakly  back  in  her  chair  and  let  them  run  silently 
down  her  worn  face.  After  a  while  Putney  said, 
gently,  "  Was  this  all  you  wanted  to  ask  me  ?  " 

"That  is  all,"  Adeline  answered,  and  she  began 
blindly  to  put  her  papers  together.  He  helped  her. 
"How  much  is  there  to  pay?"  she  asked,  with  an 
anxiety  she  could  not  keep  out  of  her  voice. 

"  Nothing.  I  haven't  done  you  any  legal  service. 
Almost  any  man  you  showed  those  papers  to  could 
have  told  you  as  much  as  I  have."  She  tried  to  gasp 
out  some  acknowledgments  and  protests  as  he  opened 
the  doors  for  her.  At  the  outer  threshold  he  said, 
"  Why,  you're  alone  !  " 

"  Yes.     I'm  not  at  all  afraid  —  " 

"  I  will  go  home  with  you."  Putney  caught  his  hat 
from  the  rack,  and  plunged  into  a  shabby  overcoat 
that  dangled  under  it. 

Adeline  tried  to  refuse,  but  she  could  not.  She  was 
trembling  so  that  it  seemed  as  if  she  could  not  have 
set  one  foot  before  the  other  without  help.  She  took 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY.  203 

his  arm,  and  stumbled  along  beside  him  through  the 
quiet,  early  spring  night. 

After  a  while  he  said,  "  Miss  Northwick,  there's  a 
little  piece  of  advice  I  should  like  to  give  you." 

"  Well  ?  "  she  quavered,  meekly. 

"  Don't  let  anybody  lead  you  into  the  expense  of 
trying  to  fight  this  case  with  the  creditors.  It 
wouldn't  be  any  use.  Your  father  was  deeply  in 
volved— " 

"He  had  been  unfortunate,  but  he  didn't  do  any 
thing  wrong,"  Adeline  hastened  to  put  in,  nervously. 

"  It  isn't  a  question  of  that,"  said  Putney,  with  a 
smile  which  he  could  safely  indulge  in  the  dark. 
"  But  he  owed  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  his  credi 
tors  will  certainly  be  able  to  establish  their  right  to 
everything  but  the  real  estate." 

"My  sister  never  wished  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  trial.  We  intended  just  to  let  it  go." 

"  That's  the  best  way,"  Putney  said. 

"  But  I  wanted  to  know  whether  they  could  take 
the  house  and  the  place  from  us." 

'•  That  was  right,  and  I  assure  you  they  can't  touch 
either.  If  you  get  anxious,  come  to  me  again  —  as 
often  as  you  like." 

"  I  will,  indeed,  Mr.  Putney,"  said  the  old  maid, 
submissively.  She  let  him  walk  home  with  her,  and 
up  the  avenue  till  they  came  in  sight  of  the  house. 
Then  she  plucked  her  hand  away  from  his  arm,  and 
thanked  him,  with  a  pathetic  little  titter.  "  I  don't 
know  what  Suzette  would  say  if  she  knew  I  had  been 
to  consult  you,"  she  suggested. 


204  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  It's  for  you  to  tell  her,"  said  Putney,  seriously. 
"But  you'd  better  act  together.  You  will  need  all 
your  joint  resources  in  that  way." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  tell  her,"  said  Adeline.  "  I'm  not  sorry 
for  it,  and  I  think  just  as  you  do,  Mr.  Putney." 

"  Well,  I'm  glad  you  do,"  said  Putney,  as  if  it  were 
a  favor. 

When  he  reached  home,  his  wife  asked,  "  Where  in 
the  world  have  you  been.  Ralph  ?  " 

"Oh,  just  philandering  round  in  the  dark  a  little 
with  Adeline  North  wick." 

"  Ralph,  what  do  you  mean  ?  " 

He  told  her,  and  they  were  moved  and  amused 
together  at  the  strange  phase  their  relation  to  the 
Northwicks  had  taken.  "To  think  of  her  coming 
to  you,  of  all  people  in  the  world,  for  advice  in  her 
trouble !  " 

"  Yes,''  said  Putney.  "  But  I  was  always  a  great 
friend  of  her  father's,  you  know,  Ellen." 

"  Ralph  !  " 

"  Oh.  I  may  have  spent  my  whole  natural  life  in 
denouncing  him  as  demoralization  incarnate,  and  a 
curse  to  the  community,  but  I  always  liked  him, 
Ellen.  Yes,  I  loved  J.  Milton,  and  I  was  merely 
waiting  for  him  to  prove  himself  a  first-class  scoundrel, 
to  find  out  just  how  much  I  loved  him.  I've  no  doubt 
but  if  we  could  have  him  among  us  again,  in  the  at 
tractive  garb  of  the  State's-prison  inmates,  I  should 
be  hand  and  glove  with  brother  Northwick." 


XXIV. 

ADELINE'S  reasons  for  going  to  Putney  in  their 
trouble  had  to  avail  with  Suzette  against  the  preju 
dice  they  had  always  felt  towards  him.  In  the  tangi 
ble  and  immediate  pressure  that  now  came  upon  them 
they  were  glad  to  be  guided  by  his  counsel ;  they  both 
believed  it  was  dictated  by  a  knowledge  of  law  and  a 
respect  for  justice,  and  by  no  regard  for  them.  They 
had  a  comfort  in  it  for  this  reason,  and  they  freely 
relied  upon  it,  as  in  some  sort  the  advice  of  an  honest 
and  faithful  enemy.  They  remembered  that  the  last 
evening  he  was  with  them,  their  father  had  spoken 
leniently  of  Putney's  infirmity,  and  admiringly  of  his 
wasted  ability.  Now  each  step  they  took  was  at 
his  suggestion.  They  left  the  great  house  before  the 
creditors  were  put  in  possession  of  the  personal  prop 
erty,  and  went  to  live  in  the  porter's  lodge  at  the 
gate  of  the  avenue,  which  they  furnished  with  the  few 
things  they  could  claim  for  their  own  out  of  their 
former  belongings,  and  from  the  ready  money  Suzette 
had  remaining  in  her  name  at  the  bank.  They  aban 
doned  everything  of  value  in  the  house  they  had  left, 
even  to  their  richer  dresses  and  their  jewels  :  they 
preferred  to  do  this,  and  Putney  approved;  he  saw 


206  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

that  it  saved  them  more  than  it  cost  them  in  their 
helpless  pride. 

The  Newtons  continued  in  their  quarters  unmo 
lested  ;  the  furniture  was  theirs  and  the  building  be 
longed  to  the  Northwick  girls,  as  the  Newtons  called 
them.  Mrs.  Newton  went  every  day  to  help  them  to 
get  going  in  their  new  place,  and  Elbridge  and  she 
lived  there  for  a  few  weeks  with  them,  till  they  said 
they  should  not  be  afraid  to  stay  alone.  He  stood 
guard  over  their  rights,  as  far  as  he  could  ascertain 
them  in  the  spoliation  that  had  to  come.  He  locked 
the  avenue  gate  against  the  approach  of  those  who 
came  to  the  assignee's  sale,  and  made  them  enter  and 
take  away  their  purchases  by  the  farm  road ;  and  in 
all  lawful  ways  he  rendered  himself  obstructive  and 
inconvenient. 

His  deference  to  the  law  was  paid  entirely  through 
Putney,  whose  smartness  inspired  Elbridge  with  a 
respect  he  felt  for  no  other  virtue  in  man.  Putney 
arranged  with  him  to  take  the  Northwick  place  and 
manage  it  on  shares  for  the  Northwick  girls ;  he  got 
for  him  two  of  the  old  horses  which  Elbridge  wanted 
for  his  work,  and  one  of  the  cheaper  cows.  The  rest 
of  the  stock  was  sold  to  gentleman  farmers  round 
about,  who  had  fancies  for  costly  cattle :  the  horses, 
good,  bad  and  indifferent,  were  sent  to  a  sale-stable 
in  Boston.  The  greenhouses  were  stripped  of  all  that 
was  valuable  in  them,  and  nothing  was  left  upon  the 
place,  of  its  former  equipment,  except  the  few  farm 
implements,  a  cart  or  two,  and  an  ancient  carryall  that 
Putney  bid  off  for  Newton's  use. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          207 

Then,  when  all  was  finished,  he  advertised  the  house 
to  let  for  a  term  of  years,  and  failing  a  permanent  ten 
ant  before  the  season  opened,  he  rented  it  to  an  adven 
turous  landlady,  who  proposed  to  fill  it  with  summer 
boarders,  and  who  engaged  to  pay  a  rental  for  it 
monthly,  in  advance,  that  would  enable  the  Northwick 
girls  to  live  on,  in  the  porter's  lodge,  without  fear  of 
want.  For  the  future,  Putney  imagined  a  scheme  for 
selling  off  some  of  the  land  next  the  villas  of  South 
Hatboro',  in  lots  to  suit  purchasers.  That  summer 
sojourn  had  languished  several  years  in  uncertainty 
of  its  own  fortunes  ;  but  now,  by  a  caprice  of  the  fash 
ion  which  is  sending  people  more  and  more  to  the 
country  for  the  spring  and  fall  months,  it  was  looking 
up  decidedly.  Property  had  so  rapidly  appreciated 
there,  that  Putney  thought  of  asking  so  much  a  foot 
for  the  Northwick  lands,  instead  of  offering  it  by  the 
acre. 

In  proposing  to  become  a  land  operator,  in  behalf  of 
his  clients,  he  had  to  reconcile  his  practice  writh  theo 
ries  he  had  held  concerning  unearned  land-values  ;  and 
he  justified  himself  to  his  crony,  Dr.  Morrell,  on  the 
ground  that  these  might  be  justly  taken  from  such  rich 
and  idle  people  as  wanted  to  spend  the  spring  and  fall 
at  South  Hatboro'.  The  more  land  at  a  high  price  you 
could  get  into  the  hands  of  the  class  South  Hatboro' 
was  now  attracting,  and  make  them  pay  the  bulk  of  the 
town  tax,  the  better  for  the  land  that  working  men 
wanted  to  get  a  living  on.  In  helping  the  Northwick 

girls  to  keep  all  they  could  out  of  the  clutches  of  their 
H 


208  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

father's  creditors,  lie  held  that  he  was  only  defending 
their  rights ;  and  any  fight  against  a  corporation 
was  a  kind  of  holy  war.  He  professed  to  be  getting 
on  very  comfortably  with  his  conscience,  and  he 
promised  that  he  would  not  let  it  worry  other  people. 
To  Mr.  Gerrish  he  made  excuses  for  taking  charge  of 
the  affairs  of  two  friendless  women,  when  he  ought  to 
have  joined  Gerrish  in  punishing  them  for  their 
father's  sins,  as  any  respectable  man  would.  He  asked 
Gerrish  to  consider  the  sort  of  fellow  he  had  always 
been,  drinking  up  his  own  substance,  while  Gerrish 
was  thriftily  devouring  other  people's  houses,  and 
begged  him  to  make  allowance  for  him. 

The  anomalous  relation  he  held  to  the  Northwicks 
afforded  him  so  much  excitement  and  enjoyment,  that 
he  passed  his  devil's  dividend,  as  he  called  his  quar 
terly  spree.  He  kept  straight  longer  than  his  fel 
low  citizens  had  known  him  to  do  for  many  years. 
But  Putney  was  one  of  those  men  who  could  not  be 
credited  by  people  generally  with  the  highest  mo 
tives.  He  too  often  made  a  mock  of  what  people 
generally  regarded  as  the  highest  motives  ;  he  puzzled 
and  affronted  them  ;  and  as  none  of  his  most  intimate 
friends  could  claim  that  he  was  respectable  in  the  or 
dinary  sense  of  the  word,  people  generally  attributed 
interested  motives,  or  at  least  cynical  motives,  to  him. 
Adeline  Northwick  profited  by  a  call  she  made  upon 
Dr.  Morrell  for  advice  about  her  dyspepsia,  to  sound 
him  in  regard  to  Putney's  management  of  her  affairs  ; 
and  if  the  doctor's  powders  had  not  so  distinctly  done 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          209 

her  good,  she  might  not  have  been  able  to  rely  upon 
the  assurance  he  gave  her,  that  Putney  was  acting 
wisely  and  most  disinterestedly  toward  her  and  her 
sister. 

"  He  has  such  a  strange  way  of  talking,  sometimes," 
she  said. 

But  she  clung  to  Putney,  and  relied  upon  him  in 
everything,  not  so  much  because  she  implicitly  trusted 
him,  as  because  she  knew  no  one  else  to  trust.  The 
kindness  that  Mr.  Hilary  had  shown  for  them  in  the 
first  of  their  trouble,  had,  of  course,  become  impossible 
to  both  the  sisters.  He  had,  in  fact,  necessarily 
ceased  to  offer  it  directly,  and  Sue  had  steadily  re 
jected  all  the  overtures  Louise  made  her  since  they 
last  met.  Louise  wanted  to  come  again  to  see  her ; 
but  Sue  evaded  her  proposals ;  at  last  she  would  not 
answer  her  letters  ;  and  their  friendship  outwardly 
ceased.  Louise  did  not  blame  her ;  she  accounted  for 
her,  and  pitied  and  forgave  her  ;  she  said  it  was  what 
she  herself  would  do  in  Sue's  place,  but  probably  if 
she  had  continued  herself,  she  would  not  have  done 
what  Sue  did,  even  in  Sue's  place.  She  remembered 
Sue  with  a  tender  constancy  when  she  could  no 
longer  openly  approach  her  without  hurting  more  than 
she  helped ;  and  before  the  day  of  the  assignee's  sale 
came,  she  thought  out  a  scheme  which  Wade  carried 
into  effect  with  Putney's  help.  Those  things  of  their 
own  that  the  sisters  had  meant  to  sacrifice,  were  bid 
den  off,  and  restored  to  them  in  such  a  way  that  it  was 
not  possible  for  them  to  refuse  to  take  back  the 


210  THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY. 

dresses,  the  jewels,  the  particular  pieces  of  furniture 
which  Louise  associated  with  them. 

Each  of  the  sisters  dealt  with  the  event  in  her  sort ; 
Adeline  simply  exulted  in  getting  her  things  again  ; 
Sue  gave  all  hers  into  Adeline's  keeping,  and  bade  her 
never  let  her  see  them. 


PART  SECOND. 

I. 

NORTHWICK  kept  up  the  mental  juggle  he  had 
used  in  getting  himself  away  from  Hatboro',  and  as 
far  as  Ponkwasset  Junction  he  made  believe  that  he 
was  going  to  leave  the  main  line,  and  take  the  branch 
road  to  the  mills.  He  had  a  thousand-mile  ticket,  and 
he  had  no  baggage  check  to  define  his  destination ;  he 
could  step  off  and  get  on  where  he  pleased.  At  first 
he  let  the  conductor  take  up  the  mileage  on  his  ticket 
as  far  as  Ponkwasset  Junction  ;  but  when  he  got  there 
he  kept  on  with  the  train,  northward,  in  the  pretence 
that  he  was  going  on  as  far  as  "Willoughby  Junction, 
to  look  after  some  business  of  his  quarries.  He  veri 
fied  his  pretence  by  speaking  of  it  to  the  conductor 
who  knew  him ;  he  was  not  a  person  to  take  conduc 
tors  into  his  confidence,  but  he  felt  obliged  to  account 
to  the  man  for  his  apparent  change  of  mind.  He  was 
at  some  trouble  to  make  it  seem  casual  and  insignifi 
cant,  and  he  wondered  if  the  conductor  meant  to  in 
sinuate  anything  by  saying  in  return  that  it  was  a 
pretty  brisk  day  to  be  knocking  round  much  in  a 
stone  quarry.  Northwick  smiled  in  saying,  "  It  was, 
rather  ;  "  he  watched  the  conductor  to  see  if  he  should 


212  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

betray  any  particular  interest  in  the  matter  when  he 
left  him.  But  the  conductor  went  on  punching  the 
passengers'  tickets,  and  seemed  to  forget  JSTorthwick 
as  soon  as  he  left  him.  At  the  next  station,  North- 
wick  followed  him  out  on  the  platform  to  find  if  he 
sent  any  telegram  off.  When  he  had  once  given  way 
to  this  anxiety,  which  he  knew  to  be  perfectly  stupid 
and  futile,  he  had  to  yield  to  it  at  every  station.  He 
took  his  bag  with  him  each  time  he  left  the  car,  and 
he  meant  not  to  go  back  if  he  saw  the  conductor  tele 
graphing.  It  was  intensely  cold,  and  in  spite  of  the 
fierce  heat  of  the  stove  at  the  end  of  the  car,  the  frost 
gathered  thickly  on  the  windows.  The  train  creaked, 
when  it  stopped  and  started,  as  if  it  were  crunching 
along  on  a  bed  of  dry  snow  ;  the  noises  of  the  wheels 
seemed  at  times  to  lose  their  rhythmical  cadence,  and 
then  Northwick  held  his  breath  for  fear  one  of  them 
might  be  broken.  He  had  a  dread  of  accident  such 
as  he  had  never  felt  before ;  his  life  had  never  seemed 
so  valuable  to  him  as  now  ;  he  reflected  that  it  was 
so  because  it  was  to  be  devoted  now  to  retrieving  the 
past  in  a  new  field  under  new  conditions.  His  life,  in 
this  view,  was  not  his  own  ;  it  was  a  precious  trust 
which  he  held  for  others,  first  for  his  children,  and 
then  for  those  whom  he  was  finally  to  save  from  loss 
by  the  miscarriage  of  his  enterprises.  He  justified 
himself  anew  in  what  he  was  intending ;  it  presented 
itself  as  a  piece  of  self-sacrifice,  a  sacred  duty  which  he 
was  bound  to  fulfil.  All  the  time  he  knew  that  he  was 
a  defaulter  who  had  used  the  money  in  his  charge,  and 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  213 

tampered  with  the  record  so  as  to  cover  up  the  fact, 
and  that  he  was  now  absconding,  and  was  carrying  off 
a  large  sum  of  money  that  was  not  morally  his.  At 
one  of  the  stations  where  he  got  out  to  see  whether 
the  conductor  was  telegraphing,  he  noticed  the  con 
ductor  eyeing  his  bag  curiously  ;  and  he  knew  that  he 
believed  there  was  money  in  it.  North  wick  felt  a 
thrill  of  gratified  cunning  in  realizing  how  mistaken 
the  conductor  was ;  but  he  was  willing  the  fellow 
should  think  he  was  carrying  up  money  to  pay  off 
his  quarry  hands. 

He  was  impatient  to  reach  the  Junction,  where  this 
conductor  would  leave  the  train,  and  it  would  continue 
northward  in  the  charge  of  another  man  ;  he  seldom 
went  beyond  Willoughby  on  that  road,  and  the  new 
conductor  would  hardly  know  him.  He  meant  to  go 
on  to  Blackbrook  Junction,  and  take  the  New  Eng 
land  Central  there  for  Montreal ;  but  he  saw  the  con 
ductor  go  to  the  telegraph  office  at  Willoughby  Junc 
tion,  and  it  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that  he  must  not 
go  to  Montreal  by  a  route  so  direct  that  any  abscond 
ing  defaulter  would  be  expected  to  take  it.  He  had 
not  the  least  proof  that  the  conductor's  dispatch  had 
anything  to  do  with  him ;  but  he  could  not  help  acting 
as  if  it  had.  He  said  good-day  to  the  conductor  as  he 
passed  him,  and  he  went  out  of  the  station,  with  his 
bag,  as  if  he  were  going  up  into  the  town.  He  watched 
till  he  saw  the  conductor  go  off  in  another  direction, 
and  then  he  came  back,  and  got  aboard  the  train  just 
as  it  was  drawing  out  of  the  station.  He  knew  that 


214  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

he  was  not  shadowed  in  any  way,  but  his  consciousness 
of  stealth  was  such  that  he  felt  as  if  he  were  followed, 
and  that  he  must  act  so  as  to  baffle  and  mislead  pur 
suit. 

At  Blackbrook,  where  the  train  stopped  for  dinner, 
he  was  aware  that  no  one  knew  him,  and  he  ate  hun 
grily  ;  he  felt  strengthened  and  encouraged,  and  he  be 
gan  to  react  against  the  terror  that  had  possessed  him. 
He  perceived  that  it  was  senseless  and  ridiculous  ;  that 
the  conductor  could  not  possibly  have  been  telegraph 
ing  about  him  from  Willoughby,  and  there  was  as  yet 
no  suspicion  abroad  concerning  him ;  he  might  go 
freely  anywhere,  by  any  road. 

But  he  had  now  let  the  New  England  Central  train 
leave  without  him,  and  it  only  remained  for  him  to 
push  on  to  "Wellwater,  where  he  hoped  to  connect  with 
the  Boston  train  for  Montreal,  on  the  Union  and  Do 
minion  road.  He  remembered  that  this  train  divided 
at  Wellwater,  and  certain  cars  ran  direct  to  Quebec, 
up  through  Sherbrooke  and  Lennoxville.  He  meant 
to  go  from  Montreal  to  Quebec,  but  now  he  questioned 
whether  he  had  better  not  go  straight  on  from  Well- 
water  ;  when  he  recalled  the  long,  all-night  ride  with 
out  a  sleeper,  which  he  had  once  made  on  that  route 
many  summers  before,  he  said  to  himself  that  in  his 
shaken  condition,  he  must  not  run  the  risk  of  such  a 
hardship.  If  he  were  to  get  sick  from  it,  or  die,  it 
would  be  as  bad  as  a  railroad  accident.  The  word  now 
made  him  think  of  what  Hilary  had  said ;  Hilary  who 
had  called  him  a  thief.  He  would  show  Hilary 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          215 

whether  he  was  a  thief  or  not,  give  him  time;  he 
would  make  him  eat  his  words,  and  he  figured  Hilary 
retracting  and  apologizing  in  the  presence  of  the  whole 
Board;  Hilary  apologized  handsomely,  and  North- 
wick  forgave  him,  while  it  was  also  passing  through 
his  mind  that  he  must  reduce  the  risks  of  railroad 
accident  to  a  minimum,  by  shortening  the  time.  They 
reduced  the  risk  of  ocean  travel  in  that  way,  by  re 
ducing  the  time,  and  logically  the  fastest  ship  was  the 
safest.  If  he  could  get  to  Montreal  from  Wellwater 
in  four  or  five  hours,  when  it  would  take  him  twelve 
hours  to  get  to  Quebec,  it  was  certainly  his  duty  to  go 
to  Montreal.  First  of  all,  he  must  put  himself  out  of 
danger  of  every  kind.  He  must  not  even  fatigue  him 
self  too  much;  and  he  decided  to  telegraph  on  to 
Wellwater,  and  secure  a  seat  in  the  Pullman  car  to 
Montreal.  He  had  been  travelling  all  day  in  the 
ordinary  car,  and  he  had  found  it  very  rough. 

It  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that  he  must  now 
assume  a  false  name ;  and  he  reflected  that  he  must 
take  one  that  sounded  like  his  own,  or  else  he  would 
not  answer  promptly  and  naturally  to  it.  He  chose 
Warwick,  and  he  kept  saying  it  over  to  himself  while 
he  wrote  his  dispatch  to  the  station-master  at  Well- 
water,  asking  him  to  secure  a  chair  in  the  Pullman. 
He  was  pleased  with  the  choice  he  had  made;  it 
seemed  like  his  own  name  when  spoken,  and  yet  very 
unlike  when  written.  But  while  he  congratulated 
himself  on  his  quickness  and  sagacity,  he  was  aware 
of  something  detached,  almost  alien,  in  the  operation 


216  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

of  his  mind.  It  did  not  seem  to  be  working  normally  ; 
lie  could  govern  it,  but  it  was  like  something  trying 
to  get  away  from  him,  like  a  headstrong,  restive 
horse.  The  notion  suggested  the  colt  that  had  fallen 
lame ;  he  wondered  if  Elbridge  would  look  carefully 
after  it ;  and  then  he  thought  of  all  the  other  horses. 
A  torment  of  heartbreaking  homesickness  seized  him  ; 
his  love  for  his  place,  his  house,  his  children,  seemed 
to  turn  against  him,  and  to  tear  him  and  leave  him 
bleeding,  like  the  evil  spirit  in  the  demoniac  among 
the  tombs.  He  was  in  such  misery  with  his  longing 
for  his  children,  that  he  thought  it  must  show  in  his 
face ;  and  he  made  a  feint  of  having  to  rise  and  ar- 
ran^e  his  overcoat  so  that  he  could  catch  si'iiht  of 

^  O 

himself  in  the  mirror  at  the  end  of  the  car.  His  face 
betrayed  nothing ;  it  looked,  as  it  always  did,  like  the 
face  of  a  kindly,  respectable  man,  a  financially  reliable 
face,  the  face  of  a  leading  citizen.  He  gathered  cour 
age  and  strength  from  it  to  put  away  the  remorse  that 
was  devouring  him.  If  that  was  the  way  he  looked 
that  was  the  way  he  must  be ;  and  he  could  only  be 
leaving  those  so  dear  to  him  for  some  good  purpose. 
He  recalled  that  his  purpose  was  to  clear  the  name 
they  bore  from  the  cloud  that  must  fall  upon  it ;  to  re 
habilitate  himself ;  to  secure  his  creditors  from  final 
loss.  This  was  a  good  purpose,  the  best  purpose  that 
a  man  in  his  place  could  have ;  he  recollected  that  he 
was  to  be  careful  of  his  life  and  health,  because  he 
had  dedicated  himself  to  this  purpose. 

He   determined  to   keep    this  purpose  steadily   in 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  217 

mind,  not  to  lose  thought  of  it  for  an  instant ;  it  was 
his  only  refuge.  Then  a  new  anguish  seized  him ;  a 
doubt  that  swiftly  became  certainty,  and  he  knew 
that  he  had  signed  that  dispatch  North  wick  and  not 
Warwick ;  he  saw  just  how  his  signature  looked  on 
the  yellow  manilla  paper  of  the  telegraph  blank.  Now 
he  saw  what  a  fool  he  had  been  to  think  of  sendiri"1 

O 

any  dispatch.  He  cursed  himself  under  his  breath, 
and  in  the  same  breath  he  humbly  prayed  to  God  for 
some  way  of  escape.  His  terror  made  it  certain  to 
him  that  he  would  be  arrested  as  soon  as  he  reached 
Wellwater.  That  would  be  the  next  stop,  the  con 
ductor  told  him,  when  he  halted  him  with  the  question 
on  his  way  through  the  cars.  The  conductor  said  they 
were  behind  time,  and  North  wick  knew  by  the  frantic 
pull  of  the  train  that  they  were  running  to  make  up 
the  loss.  It  would  simply  be  death  to  jump  from  the 
car  ;  and  he  must  not  die,  he  must  run  the  risk.  In 
his  prayer  he  bargained  with  God  that  if  He  would  let 
him  escape,  he  would  give  every  thought,  every  breath 
to  making  up  the  loss  of  his  creditors  ;  he  half  prom 
ised  to  return  the  money  he  was  carrying  away,  and 
trust  to  his  own  powers,  his  business  talent  in  a  new 
field,  to  retrieve  himself.  He  resolved  to  hide  himself 
as  soon  as  he  reached  Wellwater ;  it  would  be  dark, 
and  he  hoped  that  by  this  understanding  with  Provi 
dence  he  could  elude  the  officer  in  getting  out  of  the 
car.  But  if  there  were  two,  one  at  each  end  of  the 
car  ? 

There  was  none,  and  Northwick  walked  away  from 


218  THE    QUALITY   OF    MERCY. 

the  station  with  the  other  passengers,  who  were  going 
to  the  hotel  near  the  station  for  supper.  In  the  dim 
light  of  the  failing  day  and  the  village  lamps,  he  saw 
with  a  kind  of  surprise,  the  deep  snow,  and  felt  the 
strong,  still  cold  of  the  winterland  he  had  been  jour 
neying  into.  The  white  drifts  were  everywhere  ;  the 
vague  level  of  the  frozen  lake  stretched  away  from  the 
hotel  like  a  sea  of  snow ;  on  its  edge  lay  the  excur 
sion  steamer  in  which  Northwick  had  one  summer 
made  the  tour  of  the  lake  with  his  family,  long  ago. 

He  was  only  a  few  miles  from  the  Canadian  fron 
tier  ;  with  a  rebound  from  his  anxiety,  he  now  exulted 
in  the  safety  he  had  already  experienced.  He  re 
mained  tranquilly  eating  after  the  departure  of  the 
Montreal  train  was  cried ;  and  when  he  was  left  al 
most  alone,  the  head-waiter  came  to  him  and  said, 
"  Your  train's  just  going,  sir." 

"Thank  you,"  he  answered,  "I'm  going  out  on  the 
Quebec  line."  He  wanted  to  laugh,  in  thinking  how 
he  had  baffled  fate.  Now,  if  any  inquiry  were  made 
for  him  it  would  be  at  the  Montreal  train  before  it 
started,  or  at  the  next  station,  which  was  still  within 
the  American  border,  on  that  line.  But  on  the  train 
for  Quebec,  which  would  reach  Stanstead  in  half  an 
hour,  he  would  be  safe  from  conjecture,  even,  thanks 
to  that  dispatch  asking  for  a  chair  on  the  Montreal 
Pullman.  The  Quebec  train  was  slow  in  starting; 
but  he  did  not  care ;  he  walked  up  and  down  the  plat 
form,  and  waited  patiently.  He  no  longer  thought 
with  anxiety  of  the  long  all-night  ride  before  him.  If 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  219 

he  did  not  choose  to  keep  straight  on  to  Quebec,  he 
could  stop  at  Lenoxville  or  Sherbrooke,  and  take  up 
his  journey  again  the  next  day.  At  Staiistcad  he 
ceased  altogether  to  deal  with  the  past  in  his  thoughts. 
He  was  now  safe  from  it  beyond  any  possible  perad- 
venture,  and  he  began  to  plan  for  the  future.  He  had 
prepared  himself  for  the  all-night  ride,  if  he  should 
decide  to  take  it,  with  a  cup  of  strong  coffee  at  Well- 
water,  and  he  was  alert  in  every  faculty.  His  mind 
worked  nimbly  and  docilely  now,  with  none  of  that 
perversity  which  had  troubled  him  during  the  day 
with  the  fear  that  he  was  going  wrong  in  it.  His 
thought  was  clear  and  quick,  and  it  obeyed  his  will 
like  a  part  of  it ;  that  sense  of  duality  in  himself  no 
longer  agonized  him.  He  took  a  calm  and  prudent 
survey  of  the  work  before  him;  and  he  saw  how 
essential  it  was  that  he  should  make  no  false  step, 
but  should  act  at  every  moment  with  the  sense  that 
he  was  merely  the  agent  of  others  in  the  effort  to 
retrieve  his  losses. 


n. 

At  Stanstead  a  party  of  three  gentlemen  came  into 
the  car  ;  and  their  talk  presently  found  its  way  through 
Northwick's  revery,  at  first  as  an  interruption,  an 
annoyance,  and  afterwards  as  a  matter  of  intensifying 
personal  interest  to  him.  They  were  in  very  good 
spirits,  and  they  made  themselves  at  home  in  the  car ; 
there  were  only  a  few  other  passengers.  They  were 
going  to  Montreal,  as  he  easily  gathered,  and  some 
friends  were  to  join  them  at  the  next  junction,  and  go 
on  with  them.  They  talked  freely  of  an  enterprise 
which  they  wished  to  promote  in  Montreal ;  and  they 
were  very  confident  of  it  if  they  could  get  the  capital. 
One  of  them  said,  It  was  a  thing  that  would  have 
been  done  long  ago,  if  the  Yankees  had  been  in  it. 
"  Well,  we  may  strike  a  rich  defaulter,  in  Montreal," 
another  said,  and  they  all  laughed.  Their  laughter 
shocked  Northwick ;  it  seemed  immoral ;  he  remem 
bered  that  though  he  might  seem  a  defaulter,  lie  was 
a  man  with  a  sacred  trust,  and  a  high  purpose.  But 
he  listened  eagerly ;  if  their  enterprise  were  one  that 
approved  itself  to  his  judgment,  the  chance  of  their 
discussing  it  before  him  might  be  a  leading  of  Provi 
dence  which  he  would  be  culpable  to  refuse.  Provi 
dence  had  answered  his  prayer  in  permitting  him  to 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          221 

pass  the  American  frontier  safely,  and  Northwick 
must  not  be  derelict  in  fulfilling  his  part  of  the  agree 
ment.  The  Canadians  borrowed  the  brakeman's  lan 
tern,  and  began  to  study  a  map  which  they  spread  out 
on  their  knees.  The  one  who  seemed  first  among 
them  put  his  finger  on  a  place  in  the  map,  and  said 
that  was  the  spot.  It  was  in  the  region  just  back 
of  Chicoutimi.  Gold  had  always  been  found  there, 
but  not  in  paying  quantity.  It  cost  more  to  mine 
it  than  it  was  worth ;  but  with  the  application  of  his 
new  process  of  working  up  the  tailings,  there  was  no 
doubt  of  the  result.  It  was  simply  wealth  beyond  the 
dreams  of  avarice. 

Northwick  had  heard  that  song  before  ;  and  he  fell 
back  in  his  seat,  with  a  smile  which  was  perhaps  too 
cynical  for  a  partner  of  Providence,  but  which  was 
natural  in  a  man  of  his  experience.  He  knew  some 
thing  about  processes  to  utilize  the  tailings  of  gold 
mines  which  would  not  otherwise  pay  for  working ;  he 
had  paid  enough  for  his  knowledge :  so  much  that  if 
he  still  had  the  purchase-money  he  need  not  be  going 
into  exile  now,  and  beginning  life  under  a  false  name, 
in  a  strange  land. 

By  and  by  he  found  himself  listening  again,  and  he 
he  heard  the  Canadian  saying,  "  And  there's  timber 
enough  on  the  tract  to  pay  twice  over  what  it  will 
cost,  even  if  the  mine  wasn't  worth  a  penny." 

"  Well,  we  might  go  down  and  see  the  timber,  any 
way,"  said  one  of  the  party  who  had  not  yet  spoken 
much.  "  And  then  we  could  take  a  look  at  Mark- 


222  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

ham's  soap-mine,  too.  Unless,"  he  added,  "  you  had 
to  tunnel  under  a  hundred  feet  of  snow  to  get  at  it.  A 
good  deal  like  diggin'  the  north  pole  up  by  the  roots, 
wouldn't  it  be  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no !  Oh,  no !  "  said  he  who  seemed  to 
be  Markham,  with  the  optimism  of  an  enthusiast. 
"  There's  no  trouble  about  it.  We've  got  some  shan 
ties  that  we  put  up  about  the  mouth  of  the  hole  in  the 
ground  we  made  in  the  autumn,  and  you  can  see  the 
hole  without  digging  at  all.  Or  at  least  you  could  in 
the  early  part  of  January,  when  I  was  down  there." 

"  The  hole  hadn't  run  away  ?  " 

"  No.     It  was  just  where  we  left  it." 

"  Well,  that's  encouragin'.  But  I  say,  Markham, 
how  do  you  get  down  there  in  the  winter  ?  " 

"  Oh !  very  easily.  Simplest  thing  in  the  world. 
Lots  of  fellows  in  the  lumber  trade  do  it  all  winter 
long.  Do  it  by  sleigh  from  St.  Anne's,  about  twenty 
miles  below  Quebec  —  from  Quebec  you  have  your 
choice  of  train  or  sleigh.  But  I  prefer  to  make  a 
clean  thing  of  it,  and  do  it  all  by  sleigh.  I  take  it  by 
easy  stages,  and  so  I  take  the  long  route :  there  is  a 
short  cut,  but  the  stops  are  far  between.  You  make 
your  twenty  miles  to  St.  Anne  from  Quebec  one  day ; 
eighteen  to  St.  Joachim,  the  next ;  thirty-nine  to  Baie 
St.  Paul,  the  next ;  twenty  to  Malbaie,  the  next ;  then 
forty  to  Tatlpussac  ;  then  eighteen  to  Riviere  Mar 
guerite.  You  can  do  something  every  day  at  that 
rate,  even  in  the  new  snow ;  but  on  the  ice  of  the 
Saguenay,  to  Haha  Bay,  there's  a  pull  of  sixty  miles ; 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  223 

you're  at  Chicoutimi,  eleven  miles  further,  before  you 
know  it.  Good  feed,  and  good  beds,  all  along.  You 
wrap  up,  and  you  don't  mind.  Of  course,"  Markbam 
concluded,  "it  isn't  the  climate  of  Stanstead,"  as  if 
the  climate  of  Stanstead  were  something  like  that  of 
St.  Augustine. 

"  "Well,  it  sounds  a  mere  bagatelle,"  said  the  more 
talkative  of  the  other  two,  "  but  it  takes  a  week  of 
steady  travel." 

"  What  is  a  week  on  the  way  to  Golconda,  if  Gol- 
conda's  yours  when  you  get  there  ?  "  said  Markham. 
"Why,  Watkins,  the  young  spruce  and  poplar  alone 
on  that  tract  are  worth  twice  the  price  I  ask  for  the 
whole.  A  pulp-mill,  which  you  could  knock  together 
for  a  few  shillings,  on  one  of  those  magnificent  water- 
powers,  would  make  you  all  millionnaires,  in  a  single 
summer." 

"  And  what  would  it  do  in  the  winter  when  your 
magnificent  water-power  was  restin'  ?  " 

"  AYork  harder  than  ever,  my  dear  boy,  and  set 
an  example  of  industry  to  all  the  lazy  habitans  in 
the  country.  You  could  get  your  fuel  for  the  cost 
of  cutting,  and  you  could  feed  your  spruce  and  poplar 
in  under  your  furnace,  and  have  it  come  out  paper 
pulp  at  the  other  end  of  the  mill." 

Watkins  and  the  other  listener  laughed  with  loud 
haw-haws  at  Markham's  drolling,  and  Watkins  said, 
"  I  say,  Markham,  weren't  you  born  on  the  other  side 
of  the  line? " 

"  No.     But  my  father  was  ;  and  I  wish  he'd  stayed 


224  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

there  till  I  came.  Then  I'd  be  going  round  with  all 
the  capitalists  of  Wall  Street  fighting  for  a  chance  to 
put  their  money  into  my  mine,  instead  of  wearing  out 
the  knees  of  my  trousers  before  you  Canucks,  begging 
you  not  to  slap  your  everlasting  fortune  in  the  face." 

They  now  all  roared  together  again,  arid  at  Sher- 
brooke  they  changed  cars. 

Northwick  had  to  change  too,  but  he  did  not  try  to 
get  into  the  same  car  with  them.  He  wanted  to  think, 
to  elaborate  in  his  own  mind  the  suggestion  for  his 
immediate  and  remoter  future  which  he  had  got  from 
their  talk ;  and  he  dreaded  the  confusion,  and  possibly 
he  dreaded  the  misgiving,  that  might  come  from  hear 
ing  more  of  their  talk.  He  thought  he  knew,  now, 
just  what  he  wanted  to  do,  and  he  did  not  wish  to  be 
swerved  from  it. 

He  felt  eager  to  get  on,  but  he  was  not  impatient. 
He  bore  very  well  the  long  waits  that  he  had  to  make 
both  at  Sherbrooke  and  Richmond ;  but  when  the 
train  left  the  Junction  for  Quebec  at  last,  he  settled 
himself  in  his  seat  with  a  solider  content  than  he  had 
felt  before,  and  gave  himself  up  to  the  pleasure  of 
shaping  the  future,  that  was  so  obediently  plastic  in 
his  fancy.  The  brakeman  plied  the  fierce  stove  at 
the  end  of  the  car  with  fuel,  and  Northwick  did  not 
suffer  from  the  cold  that  strengthened  and  deepened 
with  the  passing  night  outside,  though  he  was  not 
overcoated  and  booted  for  any  such  temperature  as 
his  fellow-travellers  seemed  prepared  for.  They  were 
all  Canadians,  and  they  talked  now  and  then  in  their 


THE    QUALITY    OP    MERCY.  225 

broad-vowelled  French,  but  their  voices  were  low,  and 
they  came  and  went  quietly  at  the  country  stations. 
The  car  was  old  and  worn,  and  badly  hung ;  but  in 
spite  of  all,  Northwick  drowsed  in  the  fervor  of  the 
glowing  stove,  and  towards  morning  he  fell  into  a 
long  and  dreamless  sleep. 

He  woke  from  it  with  a  vigor  and  freshness  that 
surprised  him,  and  found  the  train  pulling  into  the 
station  at  Pointe  Levis.  The  sun  burned  like  a  soft 
lamp  through  the  thick  frost  on  the  car-window; 
when  he  emerged,  he  found  it  a  cloudless  splendor  on 
a  world  of  snow.  The  vast  landscape,  which  he  had 
seen  in  summer  all  green  from  the  edge  of  the  mighty 
rivers  to  the  hilltops  losing  themselves  in  the  blue  dis 
tance,  showed  rounded  and  diminished  in  the  immeas 
urable  drifts  that  filled  it,  and  that  hid  the  streams  in 
depths  almost  as  great  above  their  ice  as  those  of  the 
currents  below.  The  villages  of  the  habitans  sparkled 
from  tinned  roof  and  spire,  and  the  city  before  him 
rose  from  shore  and  cliff  with  a  thousand  plumes  of 
silvery  smoke.  In  and  out  among  the  fro/en  shipping 
swarmed  an  active  life  that  turned  the  rivers  into 
highroads,  arid  speckled  the  expanse  of  glistening 
white  with  single  figures  and  groups  of  men  and 
horses. 

It  was  all  gay  and  bizarre,  and  it  gave  North  wick  a 
thrill  of  boyish  delight.  He  wondered  for  a  moment 
why  he  had  never  come  to  Quebec  in  winter  before, 
and  brought  his  children.  He  beckoned  to  the  walnut- 
faced  driver  of  one  of  the  carrioles  which  waited  out- 


226  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

side  the  station  to  take  the  passengers  across  the  river, 
and  tossed  his  bag  into  the  bottom  of  the  little  sledge. 
He  gave  the  name  of  a  hotel  in  the  Upper  Town,  and 
the  driver  whipped  his  tough,  long-fetlocked  pony  over 
the  space  of  ice  which  was  kept  clear  of  snow  by  dili 
gent  sweeping  with  fir-tree  tops,  and  then  up  the  steep 
incline  of  Mountain  Hill.  The  streets  were  roadways 
from  house-front  to  house-front,  smooth,  elastic  levels 
of  thickly-bedded,  triply-frozen  snow ;  and  the  foot 
passengers,  muffled  to  the  eyes  against  the  morning 
cold,  came  and  went  among  the  vehicles  in  the  middle 
of  the  street,  or  crept  along  close  to  the  house-walls, 
to  keep  out  of  the  light  avalanches  of  an  overnight 
snow  that  slipped  here  and  there  from  the  steep  tin 
roofs. 

Northwick's  unreasoned  gladness  grew  with  each 
impression  of  the  beauty  and  novelty.  It  quickened 
associations  of  his  earliest  days,  and  of  the  winter 
among  his  native  hills.  He  felt  that  life  could  be  very 
pleasant  in  this  latitude ;  he  relinquished  the  notion  he 
had  cherished  at  times  of  going  to  South  America  with 
his  family  in  case  he  should  finally  fail  to  arrange 
with  the  company  for  his  safe  return  home  ;  lie  fore 
cast  a  future  in  Quebec  where  he  could  build  a  new 
home  for  his  children,  among  scenes  that  need  not  be 
all  so  alien.  This  did  not  move  him  from  his  fixed 
intention  to  retrieve  himself,  though  it  gave  him  the 
courage  of  indefinitely  expanded  possibilities.  He  was 
bent  upon  the  scheme  he  had  in  mind,  and  as  soon  as 
he  finished  his  breakfast  he  went  out  to  prepare  for  it. 


III. 

THE  inn  lie  had  chosen  was  one  which  lie  remem 
bered,  from  former  visits  to  Quebec,  as  having  seemed 
a  resort  of  old  world  folk  of  humble  fortunes.  He  got 
a  room,  and  went  to  it  long  enough  to  count  the 
money  he  had  with  him,  and  find  it  safe.  Then  he 
took  one  of  the  notes  from  the  others,  and  went  to  a 
broker's  to  get  it  changed. 

The  amount  seemed  to  give  the  broker  pause;  but 
he  concerned  himself  only  with  the  genuineness  of  the 
greenback,  and  after  a  keen  glance  at  Northwick's 
unimpeachable  face,  he  paid  over  the  thousand  dollars 
in  Canadian  bills.  "  We  used  to  make  your  country 
men  give  us  something  over,"  he  said  with  a  smile 
in  recognition  of  Northwick's  nationality. 

"  Yes ;  that's  all  changed,  now,"  returned  North- 
wick.  "  Do  I  look  so  very  American  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  that,"  said  the  broker,  with  an 
airy  English  inflection.  "  I  suppose  it's  your  hard 
hat,  as  much  as  anything.  We  all  wear  fur  caps  in 
such  weather." 

"Ah,  that's  a  good  idea,"  said  Northwick.  He 
spoke  easily,  but  with  a  nether  torment  of  longing  to 
look  at  the  newspaper  lying  open  on  the  counter.  He 
could  see  that  it  was  the  morning  paper ;  there  might 


228  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

be  something  about  him  in  it.  The  thought  turned 
him  faint ;  but  ho  knew  that  if  the  paper  happened  to 
have  anything  about  him  in  it,  any  rumor  of  his 
offence,  any  conjecture  of  his  flight,  he  could  not  bear 
it.  He  could  bear  to  keep  himself  deaf  and  blind  to 
the  self  he  had  put  behind  him,  but  he  could  not  bear 
anything  less.  The  papers  seemed  to  thrust  them 
selves  upon  him ;  newsboys  followed  him  up  in  the 
street  with  them;  he  saw  them  in  all  the  shops,  where 
lie  went  for  the  fur  cap  and  fur  overcoat  he  bought, 
for  the  underclothing  and  changes  of  garments  that  he 
had  to  provide ;  for  the  belt  he  got  to  put  his  money 
in.  This  great  sum,  which  he  dared  not  bank,  must 
be  carried  about  with  him ;  it  must  not  leave  him  night 
or  day  ;  it  must  be  buckled  into  the  chamois  belt  and 
worn  round  his  waist,  sleeping  and  waking.  The  belt 
was  really  for  gold,  but  the  forty-two  thousand-dollar 
notes,  which  were  not  a  great  bulk,  would  easily  go 
into  it. 

He  returned  to  his  hotel  and  changed  them  to  it, 
and  put  the  belt  on.  Then  he  felt  easier,  and  he 
looked  up  the  landlord  to  ask  about  the  route  he 
wished  to  take.  He  found,  as  he  expected,  that  it 
was  one  very  commonly  travelled  by  lumber  mer 
chants  going  down  into  the  woods  to  look  after  their 
logging  camps.  Some  took  a  sleigh  from  Quebec; 
but  the  landlord  said  it  was  just  as  well  to  go  by  train 
to  St.  Anne,  and  save  that  much  sleighing ;  you  would 
get  enough  of  it  then.  Northwick  thought  so  too, 
and  after  the  early  dinner  they  gave  him  he  took  the 
cars  for  St.  Anne. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  229 

He  was  not  tired;  he  was  curiously  buoyant  and 
strong.  He  thought  he  might  get  a  nap  on  the  wray ; 
but  he  remained  vividly  awake ;  and  even  that  night 
he  did  not  sleep  much.  He  felt  again  that  pulling  of 
his  mind,  as  if  it  were  something  separate  from  him, 
and  were  struggling  to  get  beyond  the  control  of  his 
will.  The  hotel  in  the  little  native  village  was  very 
good  in  its  way  ;  he  had  an  excellent  supper  and  an 
easy  bed ;  but  he  slept  brokenly,  and  he  was  awake 
long  before  the  early  breakfast  which  he  had  ordered 
for  his  start  next  day.  The  landlord  wished  to  per 
suade  him  that  there  was  no  need  of  such  great  haste ; 
it  was  only  eighteen  miles  to  St.  Joachim,  where  he 
was  to  make  his  first  stop,  and  the  road  was  so  good 
that  he  would  get  there  in  a  few  hours.  He  had  bet 
ter  stop  and  visit  the  church,  and  see  the  sick  people's 
offerings,  which  they  left  there  every  year,  in  gratitude 
to  the  saint  for  healing  them  of  their  maladies.  The 
landlord  said  it  was  a  pity  he  could  not  come  some 
time  at  the  season  of  the  pilgrimage  ;  his  countrymen 
often  came  then.  Northwick  perceived  that  in  spite 
of  his  fur  cap  and  overcoat,  and  his  great  Canadian 
boots,  he  was  easily  recognizable  for  an  American  to 
this  man,  though  he  could  not  definitely  decide  whether 
his  landlord  was  French  or  Irish,  and  could  not  tell 
whether  it  was  in  earnest  or  in  irony  that  he  invited 
him  to  try  St.  Anne  for  any  trouble  he  happened  to 
be  suffering  from.  But  he  winced  at  the  suggestion, 
while  his  heart  leaped  at  the  fantastic  thought  of 
hanging  that  money-belt  at  her  altar,  and  so  easing 


230  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

himself  of  all  his  pains.  He  grotesquely  imagined  the 
American  defaulters  in  Canada  making  a  pilgrimage 
to  St.  Anne,  and  devoting  emblems  of  their  moral 
disease  to  her:  forged  notes,  bewitched  accounts,  false 
statements.  At  the  same  time,  with  that  part  of  him 
which  seemed  obedient,  he  asked  the  landlord  if  he 
knew  of  the  gold  discoveries  on  the  Chicoutimi  River, 
and  tried  to  account  for  himself  as  an  American  specu 
lator  going  to  look  into  the  matter  in  his  own  way  and 
at  his  own  time. 

In  spite  of  his  uncertainty  about  the  landlord  in 
some  ways,  Northwick  found  him  a  kindly  young  fel 
low.  He  treated  Northwick  with  a  young  fellow's 
comfortable  deference  for  an  elderly  man,  and  helped 
him  forget  the  hurts  to  his  respectability  which  rankled 
so  when  he  remembered  them.  He  explained  the 
difference  between  the  two  routes  from  Malbaie  on, 
and  advised  him  to  take  the  longer,  which  lay  through 
a  more  settled  district,  where  he  would  be  safer  in 
case  of  any  mischance.  But  if  he  liked  to  take  the 
shorter,  he  told  him  there  were  good  campes,  or  log- 
house  stations,  every  ten  or  fifteen  miles,  where  he 
would  find  excellent  meals  and  beds,  and  be  well  cared 
for  by  people  \vlio  kept  them  in  the  winter  for  travel 
lers.  Ladies  sometimes  made  the  journey  on  that 
route,  which  the  government  had  lately  opened,  and 
the  mails  were  carried  that  way ;  he  could  take  pas 
sage  with  the  mail-carriers. 

This  fact  determined  Northwick.  He  shrank  from 
trusting  himself  in  government  keeping,  though  he 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  231 

knew  ho  would  be  safe  in  it.  He  said  he  would  go 
by  Tadoussac ;  and  the  landlord  found  a  carriole 
driver,  with  a  tough  little  Canadian  horse,  who  agreed 
to  go  the  whole  way  to  Chicoutimi  with  him. 

After  an  early  lunch  the  man  came,  with  the  low- 
bodied  sledge,  set  on  runners  of  solid  wood,  and  deeply 
bedded  with  bearskins  for  the  lap  and  back.  The  day 
was  still  and  sunny,  like  the  day  before,  and  the  air 
which  drove  keenly  against  his  face,  with  the  rush 
of  the  carriole,  sparkled  with  particles  of  frost  that 
sometimes  filled  it  like  a  light  shower  of  snow.  The 
drive  was  so  short  that  he  reached  St.  Joachim  at 
noon,  and  he  decided  to  push  on  part  of  the  way  to 
Baie  St.  Paul  after  dinner.  His  host  at  St.  Joachim 
approved  of  that.  "  You  goin'  have  snow  to-night 
and  big  drift  to-morrow,"  he  said,  and  he  gave  his 
driver  the  name  of  an  habitant  whom  they  could  stop 
the  night  with.  The  driver  was  silent,  and  he  looked 
sinister  ;  Northwick  thought  how  easily  the  man  might 
murder  him  on  that  lonely  road  and  make  off  with  the 
money  in  his  belt ;  how  probably  he  would  do  it  if  he 
dreamed  such  wealth  was  within  his  grasp.  But  the 
man  did  not  notice  him  after  their  journey  began, 
except  once  to  turn  round  and  say,  "  Look  out  you' 
nose.  You'  goin'  freeze  him."  For  the  rest  he  talked 
to  his  horse,  which  was  lazy,  and  which  he.  kept  urging 
forward  with  u  Marche  done !  Marche  done !  "  finally 
shortened  to  "  'Ch'  done !  'Ch'  done ! "  and  repeated  and 
repeated  at  regular  intervals  like  the  tolling  of  a  bell. 
It  made  Northwick  think  of  a  bell-buoy  off  a  ledge  of 


232  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

rocks,  which  he  had  spent  a  summer  near.  He  wished 
to  ask  the  man  to  stop,  but  he  reflected  that  the  waves 
would  not  let  him  stop ;  he  had  to  keep  tolling. 

Northwick  started.  He  must  be  going  out  of  his 
mind,  or  else  he  was  drowsing.  Perhaps  he  was 
freezing,  and  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  death 
drowse.  But  he  felt  himself  warm  under  his  furs, 
where  he  touched  himself,  and  he  knew  he  had 
merely  been  dreaming.  He  let  himself  go  again, 
and  arrived  at  his  own  door  in  Hatboro'.  He  saw 
the  electric  lights  through  the  long  piazza  windows, 
and  he  was  going  to  warn  Elbridge  again  about  that 
colt's  shoes.  Then  he  heard  a  sharp  fox-like  barking, 
and  found  that  his  carriole  had  stopped  at  the  cabin  of 
the  habitant  who  was  to  keep  him  over  night.  The 
open  doorway  was  filled  with  children ;  the  wild- 
looking  dogs  leaping  at  his  horse's  nose  were  in  a 
frenzy  of  curiosity  and  suspicion. 

Northwick  rose  from  his  nap  refreshed  physically, 
but  with  a  desolate  and  sinking  heart.  The  vision  of 
his  home  had  taken  all  his  strength  away  with  it ;  but 
from  his  surface  consciousness  he  returned  the  greet 
ing  of  the  man  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  what 
looked  like  a  blue  stocking  on  his  head,  who  welcomed 
him.  It  was  a  poor  place  within,  but  it  had  a  comfort 
and  kindliness  of  its  own,  and  it  was  well  warmed 
from  the  great  oblong  stove  of  cast-iron  set  in  the 
partition  of  the  two  rooms.  The  meal  that  the  house 
wife  got  him  was  good  and  savory,  but  he  had  no 
relish  for  it,  and  he  went  early  to  bed.  He  did  not 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  233 

understand  much  French,  and  he  could  not  talk  with 
the  people,  but  he  heard  them  speak  of  him  as  an 
old  man,  with  a  sort  of  surprise  arid  pity  at  his  being 
there.  He  felt  this  surprise  and  pity,  too ;  it  seemed 
such  a  wild  and  wicked  thing  that  he  should  be  driven 
away  from  his  home  and  children  at  his  age.  He  tried 
to  realize  what  had  done  it. 

The  habitant  had  given  Northwick  his  best  bed,  in 
his  large  room ;  he  went  with  his  wife  into  the  other, 
and  they  took  two  or  three  of  the  younger  children ; 
the  rest  all  scattered  up  into  the  loft ;  each  bade  the 
guest  a  well-mannered  good-night.  Before  Northwick 
slept  he  heard  his  host  get  up  and  open  the  outer 
door.  Some  Indians  came  in  and  lay  down  before 
the  fire  with  the  carriole  driver. 


IV. 

IN  the  morning,  Northwick  did  not  want  to  rise; 
but  he  forced  himself ;  and  that  day  he  made  the  rest 
of  the  stage  to  Baie  St.  Paul.  It  snowed,  but  he  got 
through  without  much  interruption.  The  following 
day,  however,  the  drifts  had  blocked  the  roads  so  that 
he  did  not  make  the  twenty  miles  to  Malbaie  till  after 
dark.  He  found  himself  bearing  the  journey  better 
than  he  expected.  He  was  never  so  tired  again  as 
that  first  day  after  St.  Anne.  He  did  not  eat  much 
or  sleep  much,  but  lie  felt  well.  The  worst  was  that 
the  breach  between  his  will  and  his  mind  seemed  to 
grow  continually  wider:  he  had  a  sense  of  the  rift 
being  like  a  chasm  stretching  farther  and  farther,  the 
one  side  from  the  other.  At  first  his  mind  worked 
clearly  but  disobediently  ;  then  he  began  to  be  aware 
of  a  dimness  in  its  record  of  purposes  and  motives. 
At  times  he  could  not  tell  where  he  was  going,  or 
why.  He  reverted  with  difficulty  to  the  fact  that  he 
had  wished  to  get  as  far  as  possible,  not  only  beyond 
pursuit,  but  beyond  the  temptation  to  return  volunta 
rily  and  give  himself  up.  He  knew,  in  those  days 
before  the  treaty,  that  he  was  safe  from  extradition; 
but  he  feared  that  if  a  detective  approached  he  would 
yield  to  him,  and  go  back,  especially  as  he  could  not 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  235 

always  keep  before  himself  the  reasons  for  not  going 
back.  When  from  time  to  time  these  reasons  escaped 
him,  it  seemed  as  if  nothing  could  be  clone  to  him  in 
case  he  went  home  and  restored  to  the  company  the 
money  he  had  brought  away.  It  needed  a  voluntary 
operation  of  logic  to  prove  that  this  partial  restitution 
would  not  avail ;  that  he  would  be  arrested,  and  con 
victed.  He  would  not  be  allowed  to  go  on  living  with 
his  children  in  his  own  house.  He  would  be  taken 
from  them,  and  put  in  prison. 

He  made  an  early  start  for  Tadoussac,  after  a  wake 
ful  night.  His  driver  wished  to  break  the  forty  mile 
journey  midway,  but  Northwick  would  not  consent. 
The  road  was  not  so  badly  drifted  as  before,  and  they 
got  through  a  little  after  nightfall.  Northwick  re 
membered  the  place  because  it  was  here  that  the 
Saguenay  steamer  lay  so  long  before  starting  up  the 
river.  He  recognized  in  the  vague  night-light  the 
contour  of  the  cove,  and  the  hills  above  it,  with  the 
villages  scattered  over  them.  It  was  twenty  years 
since  he  had  made  that  trip  with  his  wife,  who  had 
been  nearly  as  long  dead,  but  he  recalled  the  place 
distinctly,  arid  its  summer  effect ;  it  did  not  seem  much 
lonelier  now  than  it  seemed  in  the  summer.  The 
lamps  shone  from  the  windows  where  he  had  seen 
them  then,  when  he  walked  about  a  little  just  after 
supper  ;  the  village  store  had  a  group  of  hdbitam  and 
half-breeds  about  its  stove,  and  there  was  as  much  show 
of  life  in  the  streets  as  there  used  to  be  at  the  same 
hour  and  season  in  the  little  White  Mountain  village 

O 


236  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

where  his  boyhood  was  passed.  It  did  not  seem  so 
bad ;  if  Chicoutimi  was  no  worse  he  could  live  there 
well  enough  till  he  could  rehabilitate  himself.  lie 
imagined  bringing  his  family  there  after  his  mills  had 
got  successfully  going;  then  probably  other  people 
from  the  outside  world  would  be  living  there. 

He  ate  a  hearty  supper,  but  again  he  did  not  sleep 
well,  and  in  the  night  he  was  feverish.  lie  thought 
how  horrible  it  would  be  if  he  were  to  fall  sick  there ; 
he  might  die  before  he  could  get  word  to  his  children 
and  they  reach  him.  He  thought  of  going  back  to 
Quebec,  and  sailing  for  Europe,  and  having  his  chil 
dren  join  him  there.  They  could  sell  the  place  at 
Hatboro',  and  with  what  it  brought,  and  with  what  he 
had,  they  could  live  comfortably  in  some  cheap  country 
which  had  no  extradition  treaty  with  the  United  States. 
He  remembered  reading  of  a  defaulter  who  went  to  a 
little  republic  called  San  Marino,  somewhere  in  Italy, 
and  was  safe  there ;  he  found  the  President  treading 
his  own  grape  vats  ;  and  it  cost  nothing  to  live  there, 
though  it  was  dull,  and  the  exile  became  so  homesick 
that  he  returned  and  gave  himself  up.  He  wondered 
that  he  had  not  thought  of  that  place  before  ;  then  he 
reflected  that  no  ships  could  make  their  way  from 
Quebec  to  the  sea  before  May,  at  the  earliest.  He 
would  be  arrested  if  he  left  any  American  port,  or  ar 
rested  as  soon  as  he  reached  England.  He  remem 
bered  the  advertisement  of  a  line  of  steamships  be 
tween  Quebec  and  Brazil ;  he  must  wait  for  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  open,  and  go  to  Brazil,  and  in  the  morn 
ing  must  go  back  to  Quebec. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  237 

But  in  the  morning  lie  felt  so  much  better  that  he 
decided  to  keep  on  to  Chicoutimi.  He  could  not  bear 
the  thought  of  being  found  out  by  detectives  at  Quebec, 
and  by  reporters  who  would  fill  the  press  with  para 
graphs  about  him.  He  must  die  to  the  world,  to  his 
family,  before  he  could  hope  to  revisit  either. 

The  morning  was  brilliant  with  sunlight,  and  the 
glare  of  the  snow  hurt  his  eyes.  He  went  to  the  store 
to  get  some  glasses  to  protect  them,  and  he  bought 
some  laudanum  to  make  him  sleep  that  night,  if  he 
should  be  wakeful  again.  It  was  sixty  miles  to  Haha 
Bay,  but  the  road  on  the  frozen  river  was  good,  and 
he  could  do  a  long  stretch  of  it.  From  Riviere  Mar 
guerite,  he  should  travel  on  the  ice  of  the  Saguenay, 
and  the  going  would  be  smooth  and  easy. 

All  the  landscape  seemed  dwarfed  since  he  saw  it 
in  that  far-off  summer.  The  tops  of  the  interminable 
solitudes  that  walled  the  river  in  on  both  sides  appeared 
lower,  as  if  the  snow  upon  them  weighed  them  down, 
but  doubtless  they  had  grown  beyond  their  real  height 
in  his  memory.  They  had  lost  the  mystery  of  the 
summer  aspect  when  they  were  dimmed  with  rain  or 
swathed  in  mist ;  all  their  outlines  were  in  plain  sight, 
and  the  forests  that  clothed  them  from  the  shore  to 
their  summits  were  not  that  unbroken  gloom  which 
they  had  seemed.  The  snow  shone  through  their 
stems,  and  the  inky  river  at  their  feet  lay  a  motionless 
extent  of  white.  As  his  carriole  slipped  lightly  over  it, 
North  wick  had  a  fantastic  sense  of  his  own  minuteness 
and  remoteness.  He  thought  of  the  photograph  of  a 


238  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

lunar  landscape  that  he  had  once  seen  greatly  magni 
fied,  and  of  a  fly  that  happened  to  traverse  the  ex 
panse  of  plaster-like  white  between  the  ranges  of 
extinct  volcanoes. 

At  times  the  cliffs  rose  from  the  river  too  sheer  for 
the  snow  to  lodge  on  ;  then  their  rocky  faces  shone 
harsh  and  stern ;  and  sometimes  the  springs  that 
gushed  from  them  in  summer  were  frozen  in  long 
streams  of  ice,  like  the  tears  bursting  from  the  source 
of  some  Titanic  grief.  These  monstrous  icicles,  blear 
ing  the  visage  of  the  rock,  which  he  figured  as  nothing 
but  icicles,  affected  Northwick  with  an  awe  that  he 
nowhere  felt  except  when  his  driver  slowed  his  carriole 
in  front  of  the  great  Capes  Trinity  and  Eternity,  and 
silently  pointed  at  them  with  his  whip.  He  had  no 
need  to  name  them,  the  fugitive  would  have  known 
them  in  another  planet.  It  was  growing  late ;  the 
lonely  day  was  waning  to  the  lonely  night.  While 
they  halted,  the  scream  of  a  catamount  broke  from 
the  woods  skirting  the  bay  between  the  capes,  and 
repeated  itself  in  the  echo  that  wandered  from  depth 
to  depth  of  the  frozen  wilderness,  and  seemed  to 
die  wailing  away  at  the  point  where  it  first  tore  the 
silence. 

Here  and  there,  at  long  intervals,  they  passed  a  point 
or  a  recess  where  a  saw-mill  stood,  with  a  few  log 
houses  about  it,  and  with  signs  of  human  life  in  the 
smoke  that  rose  weakly  on  the  thin,  dry  air  from  their 
chimneys,  or  in  the  figures  that  appeared  at  the  door, 
ways  as  the  carriole  passed.  At  the  next  of  these 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  2o(J 

beyond  the  capes,  the  driver  proposed  to  stop  and 
pass  the  night,  and  North  wick  consented.  He  felt 
worn  out  by  his  day's  journey  ;  his  nerves  were  spent 
as  if  by  a  lateral  pressure  of  the  lifeless  desert  he 
had  been  travelling  through,  and  by  the  stress  of  his 
thoughts,  the  intensity  of  his  reveries.  His  mind  ran 
back  against  his  will,  and  dwelt  with  his  children.  By 
this  time,  long  before  this  time,  they  must  be  wild 
with  anxiety  about  him ;  by  this  time  their  shame 
must  have  come  to  poison  their  grief.  He  realized  it 
all,  and  he  realized  that  he  could  not,  must  not  help 
them.  He  must  not  go  back  to  them  if  ever  he  was 
to  live  for  them  again.  But  at  last  he  asked  why  he 
should  live,  why  he  should  not  die.  There  was  lauda 
num  enough  in  that  bottle  to  kill  him. 

As  he  walked  up  from  the  carriole  at  the  river's 
edge  to  the  door  of  the  saw-miller's  cabin,  he  drew  the 
cork  of  the  vial,  arid  poured  out  the  poison  ;  it  fol 
lowed  him  a  few  steps,  a  black  dribble  of  murder  on 
the  snow,  that  the  miller's  dog  smelt  at  and  turned 
from  in  offence.  That  night  he  could  not  sleep  again  ; 
toward  morning,  when  all  the  house  was  snoring,  he 
gave  way  to  the  sobs  that  were  bursting  his  heart. 
He  heard  the  sleepers,  men  and  dogs,  start  a  little  in 
their  dreams ;  then  they  were  still,  and  he  fell  into  a 
deep  sleep. 

They  let  him  sleep  late ;  and  he  had  a  dream  of 
himself,  which  must  have  been  caused  by  the  nascent 
consciousness  of  the  going  and  coming  around  him. 
People  were  talking  of  him,  and  one  said  how  old  he 

10 


240  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

was ;  and  another  looked  at  his  long,  white  beard 
which  flowed  down  over  the  blanket  as  far  as  his 
waist.  He  told  them  that  he  wore  it  so  that  they 
should  not  know  him  when  he  got  home ;  and  he 
showed  them  how  he  could  take  it  off  and  put  it  on  at 
pleasure.  He  started  awake,  and  found  his  carriole 
driver  standing  over  him. 

"  You  got  you'  sleep  hout,  no  ?  " 

"What  time  is  it?"  said  Northwick,  stupidly,  scan 
ning  the  man  to  make  sure  that  it  was  he,  and  wait 
ing  for  a  full  sense  of  the  situation  to  reach  him. 

u  Nine  o'clock,"  said  the  man,  and  he  turned  away. 

Northwick  got  up,  and  found  the  place  empty  of  the 
men  and  dogs.  A  woman,  who  looked  like  a  half- 
breed,  brought  him  his  breakfast  of  fried  venison  and 
bean-coffee ;  her  little  one  held  by  her  skirt,  and 
stared  at  him.  He  thought  of  Elbridge's  baby  that  he 
had  seen  die.  It  seemed  ages  ago.  He  offered  the 
child  a  shilling;  it  shyly  turned  its  face  into  Us 
mother's  dress.  The  driver  said,  "  'E  do'n'  know  what 
money  is,  yet,"  but  the  mother  seemed  to  know ;  she 
showed  her  teeth,  and  took  it  for  the  child.  North- 
wick  sat  a  moment  thinking  what  a  strange  thing  it 
was  not  to  know  what  money  was ;  it  had  never 
occurred  to  him  before;  he  asked  himself  a  queer 
question,  What  was  money  ?  The  idea  of  it  seemed 
to  go  to  pieces,  as  a  printed  word  does  when  you  look 
steadily  at  it,  and  to  have  no  meaning.  It  affected 
him  as  droll,  fantastic,  like  a  piece  of  childish  make- 
believe,  when  the  woman  took  some  more  money  from 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          241 

him  for  his  meals  and  lodging.  But  that  was  the  way 
the  world  was  worked.  You  could  get  anything  done 
for  money  ;  it  was  the  question  of  demand  and  supply ; 
nothing  more.  He  tried  to  think  where  money  came 
in  when  he  went  out  to  see  Elbridge's  sick  boy ;  when 
Elbridge  left  the  dead  child  to  drive  him  to  the  sta 
tion.  It  was  something  else  that  came  in  there ;  but 
that  thing  and  money  were  the  same,  after  all :  he  had 
proved  his  love  for  his  children  by  making  money  for 
them ;  if  he  had  not  loved  them  so  much  he  would 
not  have  tried  to  get  so  much  money,  and  he  would 
not  have  been  where  he  was. 

His  mind  fought  away  from  his  control,  as  the 
sledge  slipped  along  over  the  frozen  river  again.  It 
was  very  cold,  but  the  full  sun  on  his  head  afflicted 
him  like  heat.  It  was  the  blaze  of  light  that  beat  up 
from  the  snow,  too.  His  head  felt  imponderable  ;  and 
yet  he  could  not  hold  it  up.  It  was  always  sinking 
forward ;  and  he  woke  from  naps  without  being  sure 
that  he  had  been  asleep. 

He  intended  to  push  through  that  day  to  Chicoutimi ; 
but  his  start  was  so  late  that  it  seemed  to  him  as  if 
they  would  never  get  to  Haha  Bay.  When  they  ar 
rived,  late  in  the  afternoon,  all  sense  of  progress 
thither  faded  away  ;  it  was  as  if  the  starting  and  stop 
ping  were  one,  or  contained  in  the  same  impulse.  It 
might  be  so  if  he  kept  on  eleven  miles  further  to  Chi 
coutimi,  but  he  would  not  be  able  to  feel  it  so  at  the 
beginning ;  the  wish  could  involve  its  accomplishment 
only  at  the  end.  He  said  to  himself  that  this  was  un- 


242  THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY. 

reasonable ;  it  was  a  poor  rule   that  would  not  work 
both  ways. 

Tliis  ran  through  his  mind  in  the  presence  of  the 
old  man  who  bustled  out  of  the  door  of  the  cabin  where 
his  carriole  had  stopped.  It  was  larger  than  most  of 
the  other  cabins  of  the  place,  which  Northwick  re 
membered  curiously  well,  some  with  their  logs  bare, 
and  some  sheathed  in  birch-bark.  He  remembered 
this  man,  too,  when  his  white  moustache,  which 
branched  into  either  ear,  was  a  glistening  brown,  and 
the  droop  of  his  left  eyelid  was  more  like  a  voluntary 
wink.  But  the  gayety  of  his  face  was  the  same,  and 
his  welcome  was  so  cordial,  that  a  fear  of  recognition 
went  through  Northwick.  He  knew  the  man  for  the 
talkative  Canadian  who  had  taken  him  and  his  wife 
a  drive  over  the  hills  around  the  bay,  in  the  morning, 
when  their  boat  arrived,  and  afterwards  stopped  with 
them  at  this  cabin,  and  had  them  in  to  drink  a  glass 
of  milk.  North  wick's  wife  liked  the  man,  and  said 
she  would  like  to  live  in  such  a  house  in  such  a  place, 
and  should  not  be  afraid  of  the  winter  that  he  told  her 
was  so  terrible.  It  was  almost  as  if  her  spirit  wrere 
there  ;  but  Northwick  said  to  himself  that  he  must  not 
let  the  man  know  that  he  had  ever  seen  him  before. 
The  resolution  cost  him  something,  for  he  felt  so 
broken  and  weak  that  he  would  have  liked  to  claim 
his  kindness  as  an  old  acquaintance.  He  would  have 
liked  to  ask  if  he  still  caught  wild  animals  for  show 
men,  and  how  his  trade  prospered ;  if  he  had  always 
lived  at  Haha  Bay  since  they  met.  But  he  was  the 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          243 

more  decided  to  ignore  their  former  meeting  because 
the  man  addressed  him  in  English  at  once,  and  appar 
ently  knew  him  for  an  American.  Perhaps  other 
defaulters  had  been  there  before  ;  perhaps  the  mines 
had  brought  Americans  there  prospecting. 

"  Good  morning,  sir  !  "  cried  the  Canadian.  "  I  am 
glad  to  see  you  !  Let  me  'elp  you  hout,  sir.  Well, 
it  is  a  pleasure  to  speak  a  little  English  with  some 
one  !  The  English  close  hup  with  the  river  in  the 
autumn,  but  it  open  early  this  year.  I  'ope  you  are  a 
sign  of  many  Americans.  They  are  the  life  of  our 
country.  Without  the  Americans  we  could  not  live. 
No,  sir.  Not  a  day.  Come  in,  come  in.  You  will 
find  you'  room  ready  for  you,  sir." 

Northwick  hung  back  suspiciously.  "Were  you 
expecting  me  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  No  one  !  "  cried  the  man,  with  a  shrug  and  open 
ing  of  the  hands.  "  But  hall  the  travellers  they  stop 
with  Bird,  and  where  there  are  honly  two  rooms,  'eat 
with  one  stove  between  the  walls,  their  room  is  always 
ready.  Do  me  the  pleasure ! "  He  set  the  door 
open,  and  bowed  Northwick  in.  "  Baptiste  !  "  he 
called  to  the  driver  over  his  shoulder,  "  take  you'  'orse 
to  the  stable."  He  added  a  long  queue  of  unintelligible 
French  to  his  English,  and  the  driver  responded, 
"Hall  right." 

"  I  am  the  only  person  at  Plaha  Bay  who  speaks 
English,"  he  said,  in  the  same  terms  he  had  used 
twenty  years  before,  when  he  presented  himself  to 
Northwick  and  his  wife  on  their  steamboat,  and  asked 


244  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

them  if  they  would  like  to  drive  before  breakfast. 
"  But  you  must  know  me  ?  Bird  —  Oiseau  ?  You 
have  been  here  before  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Northwick,  with  one  lie  for  all.  The 
man,  with  his  cheer  and  gayety,  was  even  terribly 
familiar;  and  Northwick  could  have  believed  that 
the  room  and  the  furniture  in  it  were  absolutely  un 
changed.  There  was  the  little  window  that  he  knew 
opened  on  the  poor  vegetable  garden,  with  its  spindling 
corn,  and  its  beans  for  soup  and  coffee.  There  was 
the  chair  his  wife  had  sat  in  to  look  out  on  the  things  ; 
but  for  the  frost  on  the  pane  he  could  doubtless  see 
them  growing  now. 

He  sank  into  the  chair,  and  said  to  himself  that  he 
should  die  there,  and  it  would  be  as  well,  it  would  be 
easy.  He  felt  very  old  and  weak ;  and  he  did  not 
try  to  take  off  the  wraps  which  he  had  worn  in  the 
sledge.  He  wished  that  he  might  fall  so  into  his 
grave,  and  be  done  with  it. 


V. 

BIRD  walked  up  and  down  the  room,  talking ;  he 
seemed  overjoyed  with  the  chance,  and  as  if  he  could 
not  forego  it  for  a  moment.  "  Well,  sir,  I  wish  that  I 
could  say  as  much  !  But  I  have  been  here  forty  years, 
hoff  and  on.  I  am  born  at  Quebec  "  —  in  his  tremu 
lous  inattention,  Northwick  was  aware  that  the  man 
had  said  the  same  thing  to  him  all  those  years  before, 
with  the  same  sidelong  glance  for  the  effect  of  the  fact 
upon  him  —  "  and  I  came  here  when  I  was  twenty. 
Now  I  am  sixty.  Hall  the  Americans  know  me.  I 
used  to  go  into  the  bush  with  them  for  bear.  Lots  of 
bear  in  the  bush  when  I  first  came ;  now  they  get 
pretty  scarce.  I  have  the  best  moose-dog.  But  I 
don't  care  much  for  the  hunting  now ;  I  am  too  hold. 
That's  a  fact.  I  am  sixty;  and  f or ty, winters  I 'ave 
pass  at  Haha  Bay.  You  know  why  it  is  call  Haha 
Bay?  It  is  the  hecho.  Well,  I  don't  hear  much 
ha-ha  nowadays  round  this  bay.  But  it  is  pretty  here 
in  the  summer  ;  yes,  very  pretty.  Prettier  than  Chi- 
coutimi ;  and  more  gold  in  the  'ills." 

He  let  his  bold,  gay  eye  rest  confidently  on  North- 
wick,  as  if  to  say  he  knew  what  had  brought  him 
there,  and  he  might  as  well  own  the  fact  at  once ;  and 
Northwick  tried  to  get  his  mind  to  grapple  with  his 


246  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

real  motive.  But  his  mind  kept  pulling  away  from 
him,  like  that  unruly  horse,  and  he  could  not  manage 
it.  He  knew,  in  that  self  which  seemed  apart  from 
his  mind,  that  it  would  be  a  very  good  thing  to  let  the 
man  suppose  he  was  there  to  look  into  the  question  of 
the  mines ;  but  there  was  something  else  that  seemed 
to  go  with  that  intention ;  something  like  a  wish  to 
get  away  from  the  past  so  remotely  and  so  completely 
that  no  rumor  of  it  should  reach  him  till  he  was  willing 

O 

to  let  it ;  to  be  absent  from  all  who  had  known  him  so 
long  that  no  one  of  them  would  know  him  if  he  saw 
him.  He  was  there  not  only  to  start  a  pulp-mill,  but 
to  grow  a  beard  that  should  effectually  disguise  him, 
He  recalled  how  he  had  looked  with  that  Ions:  beard 

o 

in  his  dream ;  he  put  his  hand  to  his  chin  and  felt  the 
eight  days'  stubble  there,  and  he  wondered  how  much 
time  it  would  take  to  grow  such  a  beard. 

Bird  went  on  talking.  "  I  know  that  Chicoutimi 
Company.  I  told  Markham  about  the  gold  when  he 
was  here  for  bear.  He  is  smart ;  but  he  don't  know 
heverything.  -You  think  he  can  make  it  pay  with 
that  invention  ?  I  doubt,  me.  There  is  one  place  in 
those  'ills,"  and  Bird  came  closer  to  Northwick,  and 
dropped  his  voice,  "  where  you  don't  'ave  to  begin  with 
the  tailings.  I  know  the  place.  But  what's  the 
good?  All  the  same,  you  want  capital." 

He  went  to  the  shelf  in  the  wall  above  the  stove, 
and  took  a  pipe,  which  he  filled  with  tobacco,  and  then 
he  drew  some  coals  out  on  the  stove  hearth.  But  be 
fore  he  dropped  one  of  them  on  his  pipe  with  his 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  247 

horny  thumb  and  finger,  lie  asked  politely,  "  You  hob- 
ject  to  the  smoking?" 

Northwick  said  he  did  not,  and  Bird  said,  "  It  is 
one  of  three  things  you  can  do  here  in  the  winter ; 
smoke  the  pipe,  cut  the  wood,  court  the  ladies." 
Northwick  remembered  his  saying  that  before,  too, 
and  how  it  had  made  his  wife  laugh.  "  I  used  to  do 
all  three.  Now  I  smoke  the  pipe.  Well,  while  you 
are  young,  it  is  all  right,  and  it  is  fun  in  the  woods. 
But  I  was  always  'omesick  for  Quebec,  more  or  less. 
You  know  what  it  is  to  be  'omesick." 

The  word  pierced  Northwick  through  the  vagary 
which  clothed  his  consciousness  like  a  sort  of  fog, 
and  made  his  heart  bleed  with  self-pity. 

"  Well,  I  been  'omesick  forty  years,  and  I  don't 
know  what  for,  any  more.  I  been  back  to  Quebec ; 
it  is  not  the  same.  You  know  'ow  they  pull  down 
those  city  gate?  What  they  want  to  do  that  for? 
The  gate  did  not  keep  the  stranger  hout ;  it  let 
them  in !  And  there  were  too  many  people  dead ! 
Now  I  think  I  arn  'omesick  just  to  get  away  from 
here.  If  I  had  some  capital  —  ten,  fifteen  thou 
sand  dollars  —  I  would  hopen  that  mine,  and  take 
out  my  hundred,  two  hundred  thousand  dollar,  and 
then,  Good-by,  Haha  Bay  !  I  would  make  it  hecho 
like  it  never  hecho  before.  I  don't  want  nothing  to 
work  up  the  tailings  of  my  mine,  me !  There  is  gold 
enough  there  to  pay,  and  I  can  hire  those  habitans 
cheap,  like  dirt.  What  is  their  time  worth  ?  The 
bush  is  cut  away :  they  got  nothing  to  do.  It  is  the 


248  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

time  of  a  setting  'en,  as  you  Americans  say,  their 
time." 

Bird  smoked  away  for  a  little  while  in  silence,  and 
then  he  seemed  aware,  for  the  first  time,  that  North- 
wick  had  not  taken  off  his  wraps,  and  he  said,  hospit 
ably,  "  I  'ope  you  will  spend  the  night  with  me  here  ?  " 

Northwick  said,  "  Thank  you,  I  don't  know.  Is  it 
far  to  Chicoutimi  ?  "  Pie  knew,  but  he  asked,  hoping 
the  man  would  exaggerate  the  distance,  and  then  he 
would  not  have  to  go. 

u  It  is  eleven  mile,  but  the  road  is  bad.     Drifted." 

"  I  will  wait  till  to-morrow,"  said  Northwick,  and 
he  began  to  unswathe  and  unbutton,  but  so  feebly 
that  Bird  noticed. 

"  Allow  me  !  "  he  said,  putting  down  his  pipe,  and 
coming  to  his  aid.  He  was  very  gentle  and  light- 
handed,  like  a  woman  ;  but  Northwick  felt  one  touch 
on  the  pouch  of  his  belt,  and  refused  further  help. 

He  let  his  host  carry  his  two  bags  into  the  next 
room  for  him ;  the  bag  that  he  had  brought  with  the 
few  things  from  home,  when  he  pretended  that  he 
was  coming  away  for  a  day  or  two,  and  the  bag  that 
he  had  got  in  Quebec  to  hold  the  things  he  had  to  buy 
there.  When  Bird  set  them  down  beside  his  bed  he 
could  not  bear  to  see  the  bag  from  home,  and  he  pushed 
it  under  out  of  sight.  Then  he  tumbled  himself  on  the 
bed,  and  pulled  the  bearskin  robe  that  he  found  on  it 
up  over  him,  and  fell  into  a  thin  sleep,  that  was  not 
so  different  from  his  dim  waking  that  he  was  sure  it 
had  been  sleep  when  Bird  came  back  with  a  lamp. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          249 

"  Been  'aving  a  little  nap  ?  "  he  asked,  looking  gayly 
down  on  Northwick's  bewildered  face.  "  Well,  that 
is  all  right !  We  have  supper,  now,  pretty  soon.  You 
hungry  ?  Well,  in  a  'all-hour." 

He  went  out  again,  and  Northwick,  after  some 
efforts,  made  out  to  rise.  His  skull  felt  sore,  and  his 
arms  as  if  they  had  been  beaten  with  hard  blows. 
But  after  he  had  bathed  his  face  and  hands  in  the 
warm  water  Bird  had  brought  with  the  lamp,  he  found 
himself  better,  though  he  was  still  wrapped  in  that 
cloudy  uncertainty  of  himself  and  of  his  sleeping  or 
waking.  He  saw  some  pictures  about  on  the  coarse, 
white  walls :  the  Seven  Stations  of  the  Cross,  in  col 
ored  prints  ;  a  lithograph  of  Indians  burning  a  Jesuit 
priest.  Over  the  bed's  head  hung  a  chromo  of  Our 
Lady,  with  seven  swords  piercing  her  heart ;  beside 
the  bed  was  a  Parian  crucifix,  with  the  figure  of  Christ 
writhing  on  it. 

These  things  made  Northwick  feel  very  far  and 
strange.  His  simple  and  unimaginative  nature  could 
in  nowise  relate  itselt  to  this  alien  faith,  this  alien 
language.  He  heard  soft  voices  of  women  in  the  next 
room,  the  first  that  he  had  heard  since  he  last 
heard  his  daughters'.  A  girl's  voice  singing  was 
severed  by  a  door  that  closed  and  then  opened  to 
let  it  be  heard  a  few  notes  more,  and  again  closed. 

But  he  found  Bird  still  alone  in  the  next  room 
when  he  returned  to  it.  "  Well,  now,  we  go  to 
supper  as  soon  as  Father  ICtienne  comes.  He  is  our 
curate  —  our  minister  —  here.  And  he  eats  with  me 


250  THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY. 

when  he  heat  anywhere.  I  tell  'ini  'e  hought  to  have 
my  appetite,  if  he  wants  to  keep  up  his  spiritual 
strength.  The  body  is  the  foundation  of  the  soul, 
no  ?  Well,  you  let  that  foundation  .tumble  hin,  arid 
then  where  you  got  you'  soul,  heigh  ?  But  Father 
Etienne  speaks  very  good  English.  Heducate  at 
Rome.  I  am  the  only  other  edwcated  man  at  Haha 
Bay.  You  don't  'appen  to  have  some  papers  in  you' 
bag  ?  French  ?  English  ?  It  is  the  same !  " 

"  Papers  ?  No !  "  said  North  wick,  with  horror  and 
suspicion.  "  What  is  in  the  papers  ?  " 

"  That  is  what  I  like  to  find  hout,"  said  Bird,  spread 
ing  his  hands  with  a  shrug. 

The  outer  door  opened,  and  a  young  man  in  a 
priest's  long  robe  came  in.  Bird  introduced  his  guest, 
and  Northwick  shook  hands  with  the  priest,  who  had 
a  smooth,  regular  face,  with  beautiful,  innocent  eyes, 
like  a  girl's.  lie  might  have  been  twenty-eight  or 
twenty-nine  ;  he  had  the  spare  figure  of  a  man  under 
thirty  who  leads  an  active  life ;  his  features  were  re 
fined  by  study  and  the  thought  of  others.  When  he 
smiled  the  innocence  of  his  face  was  more  than  girl 
ish,  it  was  childlike.  Points  of  light  danced  in  his 
large,  soft,  dark  eyes ;  an  effect  of  trusting,  alluring 
kindness  came  from  his  whole  radiant  visage. 

Northwick  felt  its  charm  with  a  kind  of  fear.  He 
shrank  away  from  the  priest,  and  at  the  table  he  left 
the  talk  to  him  and  his  host.  They  supped  in  a  room 
opening  into  a  sort  of  wing ;  beyond  it  was  a  small 
kitchen,  from  which  an  elderly  woman  brought  the 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  251 

dishes,  and  where  that  girl  whom  he  heard  singing 
kept  trilling  away  as  if  she  were  excited,  like  a 
canary,  by  the  sound  of  the  frying  meat. 

Bird  said,  by  way  of  introduction,  that  the  woman 
was  his  niece  ;  but  he  did  not  waste  time  on  her.  He 
began  to  talk  up  his  conjecture  as  to  North  wick's 
business  with  the  priest,  as  if  it  were  an  ascertained 
fact.  Northwick  fancied  his  advantage  in  leaving  him 
to  it.  They  discussed  the  question  of  gold  in  the  hills, 
which  the  young  father  treated  as  an  old  story  of 
faded  interest,  and  Bird  entered  into  with  the  fervor 
of  fresh  excitement.  The  priest  spoke  of  the  poor 
return  from  the  mines  at  Chaudiere,  but  Bird  claimed 
that  it  was  different  here.  Northwick  did  not  say 
anything :  he  listened  and  watched  them,  as  if  they 
were  a  pair  of  confidence-men  trying  to  work  him. 
The  priest  seemed  to  be  anxious  to  get  the  question 
off  the  personal  ground  into  the  region  of  the  abstract, 
and  Northwick  believed  that  this  was  part  of  his  game, 
a  ruse  to  throw  him  from  his  guard,  and  commit  him 
to  something.  He  made  up  his  mind  to  get  away  as 
early  as  he  could  in  the  morning ;  he  did  not  think  it 
was  a  safe  place. 

"  Very  well !  "  the  priest  cried,  at  one  point.  "  Sup 
pose  you  had  the  capital  you  wish.  And  suppose  you 
had  taken  out  all  the  gold  you  say  is  there,  and  you 
were  rich.  What  would  you  do  ?  " 

"  What  I  do  ?  "  Bird  struck  the  table  with  his  list. 
"  Leave  Haha  Bay  to-morrow  morning  !  " 

"  And  where  would  you  go  ?  " 


252  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Go  ?  To  Quebec,  to  London,  to  Paris,  to  Rome, 
to  the  devil !  Keep  going !  " 

The  young  father  laughed  a  laugh  as  innocent  as  his 
looks,  and  turned  with  a  sudden  appeal  to  North  wick. 
"  Tell  me  a  little  about  the  rich  men  in  your  land  of 
millionnaires !  How  do  they  find  their  happiness  ? 
In  what  ?  What  is  the  secret  of  joy  that  they  have 
bought  with  their  money  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  said  Northwick, 
with  a  recoil  deeper  into  himself  after  the  first  flush  of 
alarm  at  being  addressed. 

"  Where  do  they  live  ?  " 

Northwick  hesitated,  and  the  priest  laid  his  hand  on 
Bird's  shoulder,  as  if  to  restrain  a  burst  of  information 
from  him. 

"  I  suppose  most  of  them  live  in  New  York." 

"All  the  time?" 

"  No.  They  generally  have  a  house  at  the  seaside, 
at  Newport  or  Bar  Harbor,  for  the  summer,  and  one 
at  Lenox  or  Tuxedo  for  the  fall ;  and  they  go  to  Flor 
ida  for  the  winter,  or  Nice.  Then  they  have  their 
yachts." 

"  The  land  is  not  large  enough  for  their  restless 
ness  ;  they  roam  the  sea.  My  son,"  said  the  young 
priest  to  the  old  hunter,  "you  can  have  all  the  advan-' 
tage  of  riches  at  the  expense  of  a  gypsies'  van  !  "  He 
laughed  again  in  friendly  delight  at  Bird's  supposed 
discomfiture  ;  and  touched  him  lightly,  delicately,  as 
before.  "  It  is  the  same  in  Europe ;  I  have  seen  it 
there,  too."  Bird  was  going  to  speak,  but  the  priest 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  253 

stayed  him  a  moment.  "  But  how  did  your  rich  peo 
ple  get  their  millions  ?  Not  like  those  rich  people  in 
Europe,  by  inheritance  ?  " 

•  "  Very  few,"  said  Northwick,  sensible  of  a  remnant 
of  the  pride  he  used  to  feel  in  the  fact,  hidden  about 
somewhere  in  his  consciousness.  "  They  made  it." 

"How?     Excuse  me!" 

"  By  manufacturing,  by  speculating  in  railroad 
stocks,  by  mining,  by  the  rise  in  land-values." 

"  What  causes  the  land  to  rise  in  value  ?  " 

"  The  demand  for  it.     The  necessity." 

"  Oh !  The  need  of  others.  And  when  a  man 
gains  in  stocks,  some  other  man  loses.  No  ?  Do  the 
manufacturers  pay  the  operatives  all  they  earn  ?  Are 
the  miners  very  well  paid  and  comfortable  ?  I  have 
read  that  they  are  miserable.  Is  it  so  ?  " 

Northwick  was  aware  that  there  were  good  and 
valid  answers  to  all  these  questions  which  the  priest 
seemed  to  be  asking  rather  for  the  confusion  of  Bird 
than  as  an  expression  of  his  own  opinions ;  but  in  his 
dazed  intelligence  he  could  not  find  the  answers. 

Bird  roared  out,  "  Haw !  Do  not  regard  him  !  He 
is  a  man  of  the  other  world  —  an  angel  —  a  mere  im 
becile —  about  business!"  The  priest  threw  himself 
back  in  his  chair  and  laughed  tolerantly,  showing  his 
beautiful  teeth.  "  All  those  rich  men  they  give  work 
to  the  poor.  If  I  had  a  few  thousand  dollars  to  hopen 
up  that  place  in  the  'ill,  I  would  furnish  work  to  every 
man  in  Haha  Bay  —  to  hundreds.  Are  the  miners 
more  miserable  than  those  habitans,  eh  ?  " 


254  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  The  good  God  seems  to  think  so,"  returned  the 
priest,  seriously.  "  At  least,  he  has  put  the  gold  in 
the  rocks  so  that  you  cannot  get  it  out.  What  would 
you  give  the  devil  to  help  you  ?  "  he  asked,  with  a 
sniile. 

"  When  I  want  to  make  a  bargain  with  the  devil,  I 
don't  come  to  you,  Pere  Etienne ;  I  go  to  a  notary. 
You  ever  hear,  sir,"  said  Bird,  turning  to  Northwick, 
"about  that  notary  at  Montreal  —  " 

"  I  think  I  will  go  to  bed,"  said  Northwick,  ab 
ruptly.  "  I  am  not  feeling  very  well  —  I  am  very 
tired,  that  is."  He  had  suddenly  lost  account  of  what 
and  where  he  was.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was 
both  there  and  at  Hatboro' ;  that  there  were  really 
two  Northwicks,  and  that  there  was  a  third  self  some 
where  in  space,  conscious  of  them  both. 

It  was  this  third  Northwick  whom  Bird  and  the 
priest  would  have  helped  to  bed  if  he  had  suffered 
them,  but  who  repulsed  their  offers.  He  made  shift 
to  undress  himself,  while  he  heard  them  talking  in 
French  with  lowered  voices  in  the  next  room.  Their 
debate  seemed  at  an  end.  After  a  little  while  he 
heard  the  door  shut,  as  if  the  priest  had  gone  away. 
Afterwards  he  appeared  to  have  come  back. 


VI. 

THE  talk  went  on  all  night  in  Northwick's  head 
between  those  two  Frenchmen,  who  pretended  to  be 
of  contrary  opinions,  but  were  really  leagued  to  get 
the  better  of  him,  and  lure  him  on  to  put  his  money 
into  that  mine.  In  the  morning  his  fever  was  gone; 
but  he  was  weak,  and  he  could  not  command  his 
mind,  could  not  make  it  stay  by  him  long  enough  to 
decide  whether  any  harm  would  come  from  remaining 
over  a  day  before  he  pushed  on  to  Chicoutimi.  He 
tried  to  put  in  order  or  sequence  the  reasons  he  had 
for  coming  so  deep  into  the  winter  and  the  wilderness ; 
but  when  he  passed  from  one  to  the  next,  the  former 
escaped  him. 

Bird  looked  in  with  his  blue  woollen  bonnet  on  his 
head,  and  his  pipe  in  his  mouth,  and  he  removed  each 
to  ask  how  Northwick  was,  and  whether  he  would 
like  to  have  some  breakfast ;  perhaps  he  would  like  a 
cup  of  tea  and  some  toast. 

Northwick  caught  eagerly  at  the  suggestion,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  the  tea  was  brought  him  by  a  young 
girl,  whom  Bird  called  Virginie ;  he  said  she  was  his 
grand-niece,  and  he  hoped  that  her  singing  had  not 
disturbed  the  gentleman  :  she  always  sang;  one  could 
hardly  stop  her ;  but  she  meant  no  harm.  He  stayed 


256  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

to  serve  Northwick  himself,  and  Northwick  tried  to 
put  away  the  suspicion  Bird's  kindness  roused  in  him. 
He  was  in  such  need  of  kindness  that  he  did  not  wish 
to  suspect  it.  Nevertheless,  he  watched  Bird  nar 
rowly,  as  he  put  the  milk  and  sugar  in  his  tea,  and  he 
listened  warily  when  he  began  to  talk  of  the  priest 
and  to  praise  him.  It  was  a  pleasure,  Bird  said,  for 
one  educated  man  to  converse  with  another ;  and 
Father  fitienne  and  he  often  maintained  opposite 
sides  of  a  question  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  discus 
sion  ;  it  was  like  a  game  of  cards  where  there  were 
no  stakes  ;  you  exercised  your  mind. 

Northwick  understood  this  too  little  to  believe  it ; 
when  he  talked,  he  talked  business  ;  even  the  jokes 
amonir  the  men  he  was  used  to  meant  business. 

& 

"Then  you  haven't  really  found  any  gold  in  the 
hills  ?  "  he  asked,  slyly. 

"My  faith,  yes!"  said  Bird.  "But,"  he  added 
sadly,  "perhaps  it  would  not  pay  to  mine  it.  I  will 
show  you  when  you  get  up.  Better  not  go  to  Chi- 
coutimi  to-day  !  It  is  snowing." 

"  Snowing  ?  "  Northwick  repeated.  "  Then  I  can't 
go!" 

"  Stop  in  bed  till  dinner.  That  is  the  best,"  Bird 
suggested.  "  Try  to  get  some  sleep.  Sleep  is  youth. 
When  we  wake  we  are  old  again,  but  some  of  the 
youth  stick  to  our  fingers.  No  ?  "  He  smiled  gayly, 
and  went  out,  closing  the  door  softly  after  him,  and 
Northwick  drowsed.  In  a  dream  Bird  came  back  to 
him  with  some  specimens  from  his  gold  mine.  North- 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.  257 

wick  could  see  that  the  yellow  metal  speckling  the 
quartz  was  nothing  but  copper  pyrites,  but  he  thought 
it  best  to  pretend  that  he  believed  it  gold ;  for  Bird, 
while  he  stood  over  him  with  a  lamp  in  one  hand,  was 
feeling  with  the  other  for  the  buckle  of  Northwick's 
belt,  as  he  sat  up  in  bed.  He  woke  in  fright,  and  the 
fear  did  not  afterwards  leave  him  in  the  fever  which 
now  began.  He  had  his  lucid  intervals,  when  he  was 
aware  that  he  was  wisely  treated  and  tenderly  cared 
for,  and  that  his  host  and  all  his  household  were  his 
devoted  watchers  and  nurses ;  when  he  knew  the  doc 
tor  and  the  young  priest,  in  their  visits.  But  all  this 
he  perceived  cloudily,  and  as  with  a  thickness  of  some 
sort  of  stuff  between  him  and  the  fact,  while  the  illu 
sion  of  his  delirium,  always  the  same,  was  always 
poignantly  real.  Then  the  morning  came  when  he 
woke  from  it,  when  the  delirium  was  past,  and  he 
knew  what  and  where  he  was.  The  truth  did  not 
dawn  gradually  upon  him,  but  possessed  him  at  once. 
His  first  motion  was  to  feel  for  his  belt ;  and  he  found 
it  gone.  He  gave  a  deep  groan. 

The  blue  woollen  bonnet  of  the  old  hunter  appeared 
through  the  open  doorway,  with  the  pipe  under  the 
branching  gray  moustache.  The  eyes  of  the  men  met. 

"  Well,"  said  Bird,  "  you  are  in  you'  senses  at 
last !  "  North  wick  did  not  speak,  but  his  look  con 
veyed  a  question  which  the  other  could  not  misin 
terpret.  He  smiled.  "  You  want  you'  belt  ?  "  He 
disappeared,  and  then  reappeared,  this  time  full 
length,  and  brought  the  belt  to  North  wick.  "  You 


258  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

think  you  are  among  some  Yankee  defalcator  ? "  he 
asked,  for  sole  resentment  of  the  suspicion  which 
Northwick's  anguished  look  must  have  imparted. 
"  Count  it.  I  think  you  find  it  hall  right."  But  as 
the  sick  man  lay  still,  and  made  no  motion  to  take 
up  the  belt  where  it  lay  across  his  breast,  Bird  asked, 
"  You  want  me  to  count  it  for  you  ?  " 

Northwick  faintly  nodded,  and  Bird  stood  Over  him, 
and  told  the  thousand-dollar  bills  over,  one  by  one, 
and  then  put  them  back  in  the  pouch  of  the  belt. 

"Now,  I  think  you  are  going  to  get  well.  The 
doctor  'e  say  to  let  you  see  you'  money  the  first  thing. 
Shall  I  put  it  hon  you  ?  " 

Northwick  looked  at  the  belt;  it  seemed  to  him 
that  the  bunch  the  bills  made  would  hurt  him,  and  he 
said,  weakly,  "  You  keep  it  for  me." 

"  Hall  right,"  said  Bird,  and  he  took  it  away.  He 
went  out  with  a  proud  air,  as  if  he  felt  honored  by  the 
trust  Northwick  had  explicitly  confirmed,  and  sat  down 
in  the  next  room,  so  as  to  be  within  call. 

Northwick  made  the  slow  recovery  of  an  elderly 
man ;  and  by  the  time  he  could  go  out  of  doors  with 
out  fear  of  relapse,  there  were  signs  in  the  air  and  in 
the  earth  of  the  spring,  which  when  it  comes  to  that 
northern  land  possesses  it  like  a  passion.  The  grass 
showed  green  on  the  low  bare  hills  as  the  snow  un 
covered  them;  the  leaves  seemed  to  break  like  an 
illumination  from  the  trees ;  the  south  wind  blew  back 
the  birds  with  its  first  breath.  The  jays  screamed 
in  the  woods ;  the  Canadian  nightingales  sang  in 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MEliCY.  259 

the  evening  and  the  early  morning  when  he  woke 
and  thought  of  his  place  at  Hatboro',  where  the 
robins'  broods  must  be  half-grown  by  that  time.  It 
was  then  the  time  of  the  apple-blossoms  there ;  with 
his  homesick  inward  vision  he  saw  the  billowed  tops 
of  his  orchard,  all  pink-white.  He  thought  how  the 
apples  smelt  when  they  first  began  to  drop  in  August 
on  the  clean  straw  that  bedded  the  orchard  aisles.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  if  he  could  only  be  there  again  for 
a  moment  he  would  be  willing  to  spend  the  rest  of  his 
life  in  prison.  As  it  was,  he  was  in  prison  ;  it  did  not 
matter  how  wide  the  bounds  were  that  kept  him  from 
his  home.  He  hated  the  vastness  of  the  half  world 
where  he  could  come  and  go  unmolested,  this  bond 
age  that  masked  itself  as  such  ample  freedom.  To  be 
shut  out  was  the  same  as  to  be  shut  in. 

In  the  first  days  of  his  convalescence,  while  he  was 
yet  too  weak  to  leave  his  room,  he  planned  and  exe 
cuted  many  returns  to  his  home.  He  went  back  by 
stealth,  and  disguised  by  the  beard  which  had  grown 
in  his  sickness,  and  tried  to  see  what  change  had  come 
upon  it ;  but  he  could  never  see  it  different  from  what 
it  was  that  clear  winter  night  when  he  escaped  from 
it.  This  baffled  and  distressed  him,  and  strengthened 
the  longing  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart  actually  to 
return.  He  thought  that  if  he  could  once  look  on  the 
misery  he  had  brought  upon  his  children  he  could  bear 
it  better  ;  he  complexly  flattered  himself  that  it  would 
not  be  so  bad  in  reality  as  it  was  in  fancy.  Some 
times  when  this  wish  harassed  him,  he  said  to  himself, 


260  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

to  still  it,  that  as  soon  as  the  first  boat  came  up  the 
river  from  Quebec,  he  would  go  down  with  it,  and 
arrange  to  surrender  himself  to  the  authorities,  and 
abandon  the  struggle. 

But  as  he  regained  his  health,  he  began  to  feel  that 
this  was  a  rash  and  foolish  promise  :  he  thought  he 
saw  a  better  way  out  of  his  unhappiness.    It  appeared 
a  misfortune  once  more,  and  not  so  much  a  fault  of 
his.     He  was  restored  to  this  feeling  in  part  by  the 
respect,  the  distinction  which  he  enjoyed  in  the  little 
village,  and  which  pleasantly  recalled  his  consequence 
among  the  mill-people  at  Ponkwasset.     When  he  was 
declared  out  of  danger  he  began  to  receive  visits  of 
polite   sympathy   from    the   heads    of   families,    who 
smoked  round  him  in  the  evening,  and   predicted  a 
renewal   of   his    youth   by    the    fever   he    had    come 
through  safely.      Their   prophecies  were   interpreted 
by  Bird  and  Pere  Etienne,  as  with  one  or  other  of 
these  he  went  to  repay  their  visits.     Everywhere,  the 
inmates  of  the  simple,  clean  little  houses,  had  begun 
early  to  furbish  them  up  for  the  use  of  their  summer 
boarders,  while  they  got  ready  the  shanties    behind 
them  for  their  own  occupancy  ;  but  everywhere  North - 
wick  was  received  with  that  pathetic  deference  which 
the  poor  render  to  those  capable  of  bettering   their 
condition.     The  secret  of  the  treasure  he  had  brought 
with  him  remained  safe  with  the  doctor  and  the  priest, 
and  with  Bird  who  had  discovered  it  with  them  ;  but 
Bird  was  not  the  man  to  conceal  from  his  neighbors 
the  fact  that  his  guest  was  a  great  American  capital- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          261 

ist,  who  had  come  to  develop  the  mineral,  agricul 
tural,  and  manufacturing  interests  of  Haha  Bay  on 
the  American  scale ;  and  to  enrich  the  whole  region, 
buying  land  of  those  who  wished  to  sell,  and  employing 
all  those  who  desired  to  work.  If  he  was  impatient 
for  the  verification  of  these  promises  by  Northwick,  he 
was  too  polite  to  urge  it;  and  did  nothing  worse  than 
brag  to  him  as  he  bragged  about  him.  He  probably 
had  his  own  opinion  of  Northwick's  reasons  for  the 
silence  he  maintained  concerning  himself  in  all  re 
spects  ;  he  knew  from  the  tag  fastened  to  the  bag 
Northwick  had  bought  in  Quebec  that  his  name  was 
Warwick,  and  he  knew  from  Northwick  himself  that 
he  was  from  Chicago ;  beyond  this,  if  he  conjectured 
that  he  was  the  victim  of  financial  errors,  he  smoothly 
kept  his  guesses  to  himself  and  would  not  mar  the 
chances  of  good  that  Northwick  might  do  with  his 
money  by  hinting  any  question  of  its  origin.  The 
American  defaulter  was  a  sort  of  hero  in  Bird's  fancy  ; 
he  had  heard  much  of  that  character;  he  would 
have  experienced  no  shock  at  realizing  him  in  North- 
wick  ;  he  would  have  accounted  for  Northwick,  and 
excused  him  to  himself,  if  need  be.  The  doctor  ob 
served  a  professional  reticence ;  his  affair  was  with 
Northwick's  body,  which  he  had  treated  skilfully.  He 
left  his  soul  to  Pere  Etienne,  who  may  have  had  his 
diffidence,,  his  delicacy,  in  dealing  with  it,  as  the  soul 
of  a  Protestant  and  a  foreigner. 


vn. 

IT  took  the  young  priest  somewhat  longer  than  it 
would  have  taken  a  man  of  North  wick's  own  language 
and  nation  to  perceive  that  his  gentlemanly  decorum 
and  grave  repose  of  manner  masked  a  complete  igno 
rance  of  the  things  that  interest  cultivated  people, 
and  that  he  was  merely  and  purely  a  business  man, 
a  figment  of  commercial  civilization,  with  only  the 
crudest  tastes  and  ambitions  outside  of  the  narrow 
circle  of  money-making.  He  found  that  he  had  a 
pleasure  in  horses  and  cattle,  and  from  hints  which 
Northwick  let  fall,  regarding  his  life  at  home,  that  he 
was  fond  of  having  a  farm  and  a  conservatory  with 
rare  plants.  But  the  flowers  were  possessions,  not 
passions  ;  he  did  not  speak  of  them  as  if  they  afforded 
him  any  artistic  or  scientific  delight  The  young 
priest  learned  that  he  had  put  a  good  deal  of  money 
in  pictures ;  but  then  the  pictures  seemed  to  have  be 
come  investments,  and  of  the  nature  of  stocks  and 
bonds.  He  found  that  this  curious  American  did 
not  care  to  read  the  English  books  which  Bird 
offered  to  lend  him  out  of  the  little  store  of  gifts 
and  accidents  accumulated  in  the  course  of  years  from 
bountiful  or  forgetful  tourists;  the  books  in  French 
Pere  l£tienne  proposed  to  him,  Northwick  said  he  did 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  263 

not  know  how  to  read.  He  showed  no  liking  for 
music,  except  a  little  for  the  singing  of  Bird's  niece, 
Virginie,  but  when  the  priest  thought  he  might  care  to 
understand  that  she  sang  the  ballads  which  the  first 
voyagers  had  brought  from  France  into  the  wilderness, 
or  which  had  sprung  out  of  the  joy  and  sorrow  of  its 
hard  life,  he  saw  that  the  fact  said  nothing  to  North- 
wick,  and  that  it  rather  embarrassed  him.  The  Ameri 
can  could  not  take  part  in  any  of  those  discussions  of 
abstract  questions  which  the  priest  and  the  old  woods 
man  delighted  in,  and  which  they  sometimes  tried 
to  make  him  share.  He  apparently  did  not  know 
what  they  meant.  It  was  only  when  Pere  Etienne 
gave  him  up  as  the  creature  of  a  civilization  too  ugly 
and  arid  to  be  borne,  that  he  began  to  love  him  as  a 
brother ;  when  he  could  make  nothing  of  Northwick's 
mind,  he  conceived  the  hope  of  saving  his  soul. 

Pere  fitienne  felt  sure  that  Northwick  had  a  soul, 
and  he  had  his  misgivings  that  it  was  a  troubled  one. 
He,  too,  had  heard  of  the  American  defaulter,  .who 
has  a  celebrity  of  his  own  in  Canada  penetrating  to  dif 
ferent  men  with  different  suggestion,  and  touching  here 
and  there  a  pure  and  unworldly  heart,  such  as  Pere 
fitienne  bore  in  his  breast,  with  commiseration.  The 
young  priest  did  not  conceive  very  clearly  of  the 
make  and  manner  of  the  crime  he  suspected  the  elusive 
and  mysterious  stranger  of  committing  ;  but  he  imag 
ined  that  the  great  sum  of  money  he  knew  him 
possessed  of,  was  spoil  of  some  sort ;  and  he  believed 
that  Northwick's  hesitation  to  employ  it  in  any  way 


264  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

was  proof  of  an  uneasy  conscience  in  its  possession. 
Why  had  he  come  to  that  lonely  place  in  midwinter 
with  a  treasure  such  as  that ;  and  why  did  he  keep  the 
money  by  him,  instead  of  putting  it  in  a  bank  ?  Pere 
!Etienne  talked  these  questions  over  with  Bird  and  the 
doctor,  and  he  could  find  only  one  answer  to  them. 
He  wondered  if  he  ought  not  to  speak  to  Northwick, 
and  delicately  offer  him  the  chance  to  unburden  his 
mind  to  such  a  friend  as  only  a  priest  could  be  to  such 
a  sinner.  But  he  could  not  think  of  any  approach 
sufficiently  delicate.  Northwick  was  not  a  Catholic, 
and  the  church  had  no  hold  upon  him.  Besides,  he 
had  a  certain  plausibility  and  reserve  of  demeanor 
that  forbade  suspicion,  as  well  as  ths  intimacy  neces 
sary  to  the  good  which  Pere  Etienne  wished  to  do  the 
lonely  and  silent  man.  Northwick  was  in  those  days 
much  occupied  with  a  piece  of  writing,  which  he  al 
ways  locked  carefully  into  his  bag  when  he  left  his 
room,  and  which  he  copied  in  part  or  in  whole  again 
and  again,  burning  the  rejected  drafts  in  the  hearth- 
fire  that  had  now  superseded  the  stove,  and  stirring 
the  carbonized  paper  into  ashes,  so  that  no  word  was 
left  distinguishable  on  it. 

One  day  there  came  up  the  river  a  bateau  from 
Tadoussac,  bringing  the  news  that  the  ice  was  all  out 
of  the  St.  Lawrence.  "  It  will  not  be  long  time,  now," 
said  Bird,  "before  we  begin  to  see  you'  countrymen. 
The  steamboats  come  to  Haha  Bay  in  the  last  of 
June." 

Northwick  responded  to  the  words  with  no  visible 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.  265 

sensation.  His  sphinx-like  reticence  vexed  Bird  more 
and  more,  and  intolerably  deepened  the  mystification 
of  his  failure  to  do  any  of  the  things  with  his  capital 
which  Bird  had  promised  himself  and  his  fellow-citi 
zens.  He  no  longer  talked  of  going  to  Chicoutimi, 
that  was  true,  and  there  was  not  the  danger  of  his 
putting  his  money  into  Markham's  enterprise  there ; 
but  neither  did  he  show  any  interest  or  any  curiosity 
concerning  Bird's  discovery  of  the  precious  metal  at 
Haha  Bay.  Bird  had  his  delicacy  as  well  as  Pere 
Etienne,  and  he  could  not  thrust  himself  upon  his 
guest,  even  with  the  intention  of  making  their  joint 
fortune. 

A  few  days  later  there  came  to  Pere  Etienne  a 
letter,  which,  when  he  read  it,  superseded  the  interest 
in  Northwick,  which  Bird  felt  gnawing  him  like  a  per 
petual  hunger.  It  was  from  the  cure  at  Rimouski, 
where  Pere  Etienne's  family  lived,  and  it  brought 
word  that  his  mother,  who  had  been  in  failing  health 
all  winter,  could  not  long  survive,  and  so  greatly  de 
sired  to  see  him,  that  his  correspondent  had  asked 
their  superior  to  allow  him  to  replace  Pere  £tienne  at 
Haha  Bay,  while  he  came  to  visit  her.  Leave  had 
been  given,  and  Pere  iStienne  might  expect  his  friend 
very  soon  after  his  letter  reached  him. 

"  Where  is  Rimouski  ?  "  Northwick  asked,  when 
he  found  himself  alone  with  the  priest  that  evening. 

"  It  is  on  the  St.  Lawrence.  It  is  the  last  and  first 
point  where  the  steamers  touch  in  going  and  coming 
between  Quebec  and  Liverpool."  Pere  I^tieime  had 


266  TUB  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

been  weeping,  and  his  heart  was  softened  and  embol 
dened  by  the  anxiety  he  felt.  "  It  is  my  native  vil 
lage  —  where  I  lived  till  I  went  to  make  my  studies 
in  the  Laval  University.  It  is  going  home  for  me. 
Perhaps  they  will  let  me  remain  there."  He  added, 
by  an  irresistible  impulse  of  pity  and  love,  "  I  wish 
you  were  going  home,  too,  Mr.  Warwick  !  " 

"  I  wish  I  were  !  "  said  Northwick,  with  a  heavy 
sigh.  "  But  I  can't  —  yet." 

"  This  is  a  desert  for  you,"  Pere  iStienne  pressed  on. 
"  I  can  see  that.  I  have  seen  how  solitary  you  are." 

"  Yes.     It's  lonesome,"  Northwick  admitted. 

"  My  son,"  said  the  young  priest  to  the  man  who 
was  old  enough  to  be  his  father,  and  he  put  his  hand 
on  Northwick's,  where  it  lay  on  his  knee,  as  they  sat 
side  by  side  before  the  fire,  "  is  there  something  you 
could  wish  to  say  to  me  ?  Something  I  might  do  to 
help  you  ?  " 

In  a  moment  all  was  open  between  them,  and  they 
knew  each  other's  meaning.  u  Yes,"  said  Northwick, 
and  he  felt  the  v/ish  to  trust  in  the  priest  and  to  be 
ruled  by  him  well  up  like  a  tide  of  hot  blood  from  his 
heart.  It  sank  back  again.  This  pure  soul  was  too 
innocent,  too  unversed  in  the  world  and  its  ways  to 
know  his  offence  in  its  right  proportion  ;  to  know  it 
as  Northwick  himself  knew  it ;  to  be  able  to  account 
for  it  and  condone  it.  The  affair,  if  he  could  under 
stand  it  at  all,  would  shock  him ;  he  must  blame  it  as 
relentlessly  as  Northwick's  own  child  would  if  her 
love  did  not  save  him.  With  the  next  word  he  closed 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  267 

that  which  was  open  between  them,  a  rift  in  his  clouds 
that  heaven  itself  had  seemed  to  look  through.  "  I 
have  a  letter  —  a  letter  that  I  wish  you  would  take 
and  mail  for  me  in  Rimouski." 

"  I  will  take  it  with  great  pleasure,"  said  the  priest, 
but  he  had  the  sadness  of  a  deep  disappointment  in 
his  tone. 

Northwick  was  disappointed,  too ;  almost  injured. 
He  had  something  like  a  perception  that  if  Pere 
Etienne  had  been  a  coarser,  commoner  soul,  he  could 
have  told  him  everything,  and  saved  his  own  soul  by 
the  confession. 

About  a  month  after  the  priest's  departure  the  first 
steamboat  came  up  the  Saguenay  from  Quebec.  By 
this  time  Bird  was  a  desperate  man.  Northwick  was 
still  there  in  his  house,  with  all  that  money  which 
he  would  not  employ  in  any  way ;  at  once  a  tempta 
tion  and  a  danger  if  it  should  in  any  manner  become 
known.  The  wandering  poor,  who  are  known  to 
the  piety  of  the  halitans  as  the  Brethren  of  Christ, 
were  a  terror  to  Bird,  in  their  visits,  when  they  came 
by  day  to  receive  the  charity  which  no  one  denies 
them ;  he  felt  himself  bound  to  keep  a  watchful  eye 
on  this  old  Yankee,  who  was  either  a  rascal  or  a  mad 
man,  and  perhaps  both,  and  to  see  that  no  harm  came 
to  him;  and  when  he  heard  the  tramps  prowling 
about  at  night,  and  feeling  for  the  alms  that  kind 
people  leave  out-doors  for  them,  he  could  not  sleep. 
The  old  hunter  neglected  his  wild-beast  traps,  and 
suffered  his  affairs  to  fall  into  neglect ;  but  it  was 


2G8  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

not  his  failing  appetite,  or  his  broken  sleep  alone 
that  wore  upon  him.  The  disappointment  with  his 
guest  that  was  spreading  through  the  community, 
involved  Bird,  and  he  thought  his  neighbors  looked 
askance  at  him :  as  if  they  believed  he  could  have 
moved  Northwick  to  action,  if  he  would.  Northwick 
could  not  have  moved  himself.  He  was  like  one 
benumbed.  He  let  the  days  go  by,  and  made  no 
attempt  to  realize  the  schemes  for  the  retrieval  of  his 
fortunes  that  had  brought  him  to  that  region. 

The  sound  of  the  steamboat's  whistle  was  a  joyful 
sound  to  Bird.  He  rose  and  went  into  Northwick's 
room.  Northwick  was  awake;  he  had  heard  the 
whistle,  too. 

"  Now,  Mr.  Warwick,  or  what  you'  name,"  said 
Bird,  with  trembling  eagerness,  "  that  is  the  boat.  I 
want  you  take  you'  money  and  go  hout  my  'ouse. 
Yes,  sir.  Now !  Pack  you'  things.  Don't  wait  for 
breakfast.  You  get  breakfast  on  board.  Go !  " 


VIII. 

THE  letter  which  Pore  Etienne  posted  for  North- 
wick  at  Rimouski  was  addressed  to  the  editor  of  the 
Boston  Events,  and  was  published  with  every  advan 
tage  which  scare-heading  could  invent.  A  young 
journalist  newly  promoted  to  the  management  was 
trying  to  give  the  counting-room  proofs  of  his  effi 
ciency  in  the  line  of  the  Events'  greatest  successes, 
and  he  wasted  no  thrill  that  the  sensation  in  his  hands 
was  capable  of  imparting  to  his  readers.  Yet  the 
effect  was  disappointing,  not  only  in  the  figure  of 
the  immediate  sales,  but  in  the  cumulative  value  of 
the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  Events  had  been 
selected  by  Northwick  as  the  best  avenue  for  ap 
proaching  the  public.  The  Abstract,  in  copying  and 
commenting  upon  the  letter,  skilfully  stabbed  its  es 
teemed  contemporary  with  an  acknowledgment  of 
its  prime  importance  as  the  organ  of  the  American 
defaulters  in  Canada ;  other  papers,  after  questioning 
the  document  as  a  fake,  made  common  cause  in  treat 
ing  it  as  a  matter  of  little  or  no  moment.  In  fact, 
there  had  been  many  defalcations  since  Northwick's ; 
the  average  of  one  a  day  in  the  despatches  of  the 
Associated  Press  had  been  fully  kept  up,  and  several 
of  these  had  easily  surpassed  his  in  the  losses  involved, 


270  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

and  in  the  picturesqueness  of  the  circumstances.  Peo 
ple  generally  recalled  with  an  effort  the  supremely 
tragic  claim  of  his  case  through  the  rumor  of  his 
death  in  the  railroad  accident ;  those  who  distinctly 
remembered  it  experienced  a  certain  disgust  at  the 
man's  willingness  to  shelter  himself  so  long  in  the 
doubt  to  which  it  had  left  not  only  the  public,  but 
his  own  family,  concerning  his  fate. 

The  evening  after  the  letter  appeared,  Hilary  was 
dining  one  of  those  belated  Englishmen  who  some 
times  arrive  in  Boston  after  most  houses  are  closed 
for  the  summer  on  the  Hill  and  the  Back  Bay.  Mrs. 
Hilary  and  Louise  were  already  with  Matt  at  his 
farm  for  a  brief  season  before  opening  their  own 
house  at  the  shore,  and  Hilary  was  living  en  gar^on. 
There  were  only  men  at  the  dinner,  and  the  talk  at  first 
ran  chiefly  to  question  of  a  sufficient  incentive  for  North- 
wick's  peculations  ;  its  absence  was  the  fact  which  all 
concurred  in  owning.  In  deference  to  his  guest's  igno 
rance  of  the  matter,  Hilary  went  rapidly  over  it  from 
the  beginning,  and  as  he  did  so  the  perfectly  typical 
character  of  the  man  and  of  the  situation  appeared  in 
clear  relief.  He  ended  by  saying  t  "  It  isn't  at  all  a 
remarkable  instance.  There  is  nothing  peculiar  about 
it.  Northwick  was  well  off  and  he  wished  to  be 
better  off.  He  had  plenty  of  other  people's  money 
in  his  hands  which  he  controlled  so  entirely  that  he 
felt  as  if  it  were  his  own.  He  used  it  and  he  lost  it. 
Then  he  was  found  out,  and  ran  away.  That's  all." 

"Then,  as    I   understand,"    said   the    Englishman, 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          271 

with  a  strong  impression  that  he  was  making  a  joke, 
"this  Mr.  Northwick  was  not  one  of  your  most  re 
markable  men." 

Everybody  laughed  obligingly,  and  Hilary  said, 
"  He  was  one  of  our  least  remarkable  men."  Then, 
spurred  on  by  that  perverse  impulse  which  we  Amer- 
cans  often  have  to  make  the  worst  of  ourselves  to  an 
Englishman,  he  added,  "  The  defaulter  seems  to  be 
taking  the  place  of  the  self-made  man  among  us. 
Northwick's  a  type,  a  little  differentiated  from  thou 
sands  of  others  by  the  rumor  of  his  death  in  the  first 
place,  and  now  by  this  unconsciously  hypocritical  and 
nauseous  letter.  He's  what  the  commonplace  Amer 
ican  egotist  must  come  to  more  and  more  in  finance, 
now  that  he  is  abandoning  the  career  of  politics,  and 
wants  to  be  rich  instead  of  great." 

"  Really  ?  "  said  the  Englishman,, 

Among  Hilary's  guests  was  Charles  Bellingham,  a 
bachelor  of  pronounced  baldness,  who  said  he  would 
come  to  meet  Hilary's  belated  Englishman,  in  quality 
of  bear-leader  to  his  cousin-in-law,  old  Bromfield  Co 
rey,  a  society  veteran  of  that  period  when  even  the 
swell  in  Boston  must  be  an  intellectual  man.  He 
was  not  only  old,  but  an  invalid,  and  he  seldom  left 
town  in  summer,  and  liked  to  go  out  to  dinner  when 
ever  he  was  asked.  Bellingham  came  to  the  rescue 
of  the  national  repute  in  his  own  fashion.  "  I  can't 
account  for  your  not  locking  up  your  spoons,  Hilary, 
when  you  invited  me,  unless  you  knew  where  you 
could  steal  some  more." 

18 


272  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

"  Ah,  it  isn't  quite  like  a  gentleman's  stealing  a  few 
spoons,"  old  Corey  began,  in  the  gentle  way  he  had, 
and  with  a  certain  involuntary  sibilation  through  the 
gaps  between  his  front  teeth.  "  It's  a  much  more 
heroic  thing  than  an  ordinary  theft ;  and  I  can't  let 
you  belittle  it  as  something  commonplace  because  it 
happens  every  day.  So  does  death  ;  so  does  birth  ; 
but  they're  not  commonplace." 

"  They're  not  so  frequent  as  defalcation  with  us, 
quite  —  especially  birth,"  suggested  Bellingham. 

"  No,"  Corey  went  on,  "  every  fact  of  this  sort  is 
preceded  by  the  slow  and  long  decay  of  a  moral 
nature,  and  that  is  of  the  most  eternal  and  tragical 
interest;  and"  —  here  Corey  broke  down  in  an  old 
man's  queer,  whimpering  laugh,  as  the  notion  struck 
him — "  if  it's  very  common  with  us,  I  don't  know 
but  we  ought  to  be  proud  of  it,  as  showing  that  we  ex 
cel  all  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world  in  the  proportion 
of  decayed  moral  natures  to  the  whole  population. 
But  I  wonder,"  lie  went  on,  "  that  it  doesn't  produce 
more  moralists  of  a  sanative  type  than  it  has.  Our 
bad  teeth  have  given  us  the  best  dentists  in  the  world  ; 
our  habit  of  defalcation  hasn't  resulted  yet  in  any 
ethical  compensation.  Sewell,  here,  used  to  preach 
about  such  things,  but  I'll  venture  to  say  we  shall 
have  no  homily  on  Northwick  from  him  next 
Sunday." 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Sewell  suffered  the  thrust  in  patience, 
"  What  is  the  use  ?  "  he  asked,  with  a  certain  sadness. 
*'The  preacher's  voice  is  lost  in  his  sounding-board 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          273 

nowadays,  when  all  the  Sunday  newspapers  are  cry 
ing  aloud  from  twenty-eight  pages  illustrated." 

"  Perhaps  they  are  our  moralists,"  Corey  suggested. 

"  Perhaps,"  Sewell  assented. 

"  By  the  way,  Hilary,"  said  Bellingham,  "  did  you 
ever  know  who  wrote  that  article  in  the  Abstract,  when 
Northwick's  crookedness  first  appeared  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Hilary.  "It  was  a  young  fellow  of 
twenty-four  or  five." 

"  Come  off !  "  said  Bellingham,  in  a  slang  phrase 
then  making  its  way  into  merited  favor.  "What's 
become  of  him  ?  I  haven't  seen  anything  else  like  it 
in  the  Abstract" 

"  No,  and  I'm  afraid  you're  not  likely  to.  The 
fellow  was  a  reporter  on  the  paper  at  the  time ;  but 
he  happened  to  have  looked  up  the  literature  of  defal 
cation,  and  they  let  him  say  his  say." 

"It  was  a  very  good  say." 

"  Better  than  any  other  he  had  in  him.  They  let 
him  try  again  on  different  things,  but  he  wasn't  up  to 
the  work.  So  the  managing  editor  said  —  and  he 
was  a  friend  of  the  fellow's.  He  was  too  literary,  I 
believe." 

"  And  what's  become  of  him  ?  "  asked  Corey. 

"  You  might  get  him  to  read  to  you,"  said  Belling 
ham  to  the  old  man.  He  added  to  the  company, 
"  Corey  uses  up  a  fresh  reader  every  three  months. 
He  takes  them  into  his  intimacy,  and  then  he  finds 
their  society  oppressive." 

"Why,"  Hilary  answered  with  a  little  hesitation, 


274  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  he  was  out  of  health,  and  Matt  had  him  up  to  his 
farm." 

"  Is  he  Matt's  only  beneficiary  ?  "  Corey  asked, 
with  a  certain  tone  of  tolerant  liking  for  Matt.  "  I 
thought  he  usually  had  a  larger  colony  at  Vardley." 

"Well,  he  has,"  said  Hilary.  "But  when  his 
mother  and  sister  are  visiting  him,  he  has  to  reduce  their 
numbers.  He  can't  very  well  turn  his  family  away." 

"  He  might  board  them  out,"  said  Bellingham. 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  asked  Sewell,  as  if  he  had  not 
noticed  the  turn  the  talk  had  taken,  "  that  North  wick 
has  gone  to  Europe  ?  " 

"  I've  no  doubt  he  wishes  me  to  suppose  so,"  said 
Hilary,  "  and  of  course  we've  had  to  cable  the  author 
ities  to  look  out  for  him  at  Moville  and  Liverpool,  but 
I  feel  perfectly  sure  he's  still  in  Canada,  and  expects 
to  make  terms  for  getting  home  again.  He  must  be 
horribly  homesick." 

"Yes  ?  "  Sewell  suggested. 

"  Yes.  Not  because  he's  a  man  of  any  delicacy  of 
feeling,  or  much  real  affection  for  his  family.  I've  no 
doubt  he's  fond  of  them,  in  a  way,  but  he's  fonder  of 
himself.  You  can  see,  all  through  his  letter,  that  he's 
trying  to  make  interest  for  himself,  and  that  he's  quite 
willing  to  use  his  children  if  it  will  tell  on  the  public 
sympathies.  He  knows  very  well  that  they're  pro 
vided  for.  They  own  the  place  at  Hatboro'  ;  he 
deeded  it  to  them  long  before  his  crookedness  is  known 
to  have  begun  ;  and  his  creditors  couldn't  touch  it  if 
they  wished  to.  If  he  had  really  that  fatherly  affec- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          275 

tion  for  them,  which  he  appeals  to  in  others,  he 
wouldn't  have  left  them  in  doubt  whether  he  was 
alive  or  dead  for  four  or  five  months,  and  then  dragged 
them  into  an  open  letter  asking  forbearance  in  their 
name,  and  promising,  for  their  sake,  to  right  those  he 
had  wronged.  The  thing  is  thoroughly  indecent." 

Since  the  fact  of  Northwick's  survival  had  been 
established  beyond  question  by  the  publication  of  his 
letter,  Hilary's  mind  in  regard  to  him  had  undergone 
a  great  revulsion.  It  relieved  itself  with  a  sharp  re 
bound  from  the  oppressive  sense  of  responsibility  for 
his  death,  which  he  seemed  to  have  incurred  in  telling 
Northwick  that  the  best  thing  for  him  would  be  a 
railroad  accident.  Now  that  the  man  was  not  killed, 
Hilary  could  freely  declare,  "  He  made  a  great  mis 
take  in  not  getting  out  of  the  world,  as  many  of  us 
believed  he  had ;  I  confess  I  had  rather  got  to  believe 
it  myself.  But  he  ought  at  least  to  have  had  the  grace 
to  remain  dead  to  the  poor  creatures  he  had  dis 
honored  till  he  could  repay  the  people  he  had  de 
frauded." 

"  Ah !  I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  Sewell. 

"  No  ?     Why  not  ?  " 

"  Because  it  would  be  a  kind  of  romantic  deceit 
that  he'd  better  not  keep  up." 

"He  seems  to  have  kept  it  up  for  the  last  four 
or  five  months,"  said  Hilary. 

"  That's  no  reason  he  should  continue  to  keep  it 
up,"  Sewell  persisted.  "  Perhaps  he  never  knew  of 
the  rumor  of  his  death." 


276  THE    QUALITY    OP    MERCY. 

"  Ah,  that  isn't  imaginable.  There  isn't  a  hole  or 
corner  left  where  the  newspapers  don't  penetrate,  now 
adays." 

"  Not  in  Boston.  But  if  he  were  in  hiding  in  some 
little  French  village  down  the  St.  Lawrence  —  " 

"  Isn't  that  as  romantic  as  the  other  notion,  parson  ?  " 
crowed  old  Corey. 

"  No,  I  don't  think  so,"  said  the  minister.  "  The 
cases  are  quite  different.  He  might  have  a  morbid 
shrinking  from  his  own  past,  and  the  wish  to  hide 
from  it  as  far  as  he  could ;  that  would  be  natural ;  but 
to  leave  his  children  to  believe  a  rumor  of  his  death 
in  order  to  save  their  feelings,  would  be  against  nature ; 
it  would  be  purely  histrionic;  a  motive  from  the 
theatre ;  that  is,  perfectly  false." 

"  Pretty  hard  on  Hilary,  who  invented  it,"  Belling- 
ham  suggested ;  and  they  all  laughed. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Hilary.  "The  man  seems  to 
be  posing  in  other  ways.  You  would  think  from  his 
letter  that  he  was  a  sort  of  martyr  to  principle,  and 
that  he'd  been  driven  off  to  Canada  by  the  heartless 
creditors  whom  he's  going  to  devote  his  life  to  saving 
from  loss,  if  he  can't  do  it  in  a  few  months  or  years. 
He  may  not  be  a  conscious  humbug,  but  he's  certainly 
a  humbug.  Take  that  pretence  of  his  that  he  would 
come  back  and  stand  his  trial  if  he  believed  it  would 
not  result  in  greater  harm  than  good  by  depriving  him 
of  all  hope  of  restitution  !  " 

"  Why,  there's  a  sort  of  crazy  morality  in  that," 
said  Corey. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  277 

"  Perhaps,"  said  Bellingham,  "  the  solution  of  the 
whole  matter  is  that  North  wick  is  cracked." 

"I've  no  doubt  he's  cracked  to  a  certain  extent," 
said  Sewell,  "  as  every  wrong-doer  is.  You  know  the 
Swedenborgians  believe  that  insanity  is  the  last  state 
of  the  wicked." 

"  I  suppose,"  observed  old  Corey,  thoughtfully, 
"  you'd  be  very  glad  to  have  him  keep  out  of  your 
reach,  Hilary  ?  " 

"  What  a  question !  "  said  Hilary.  "  You're  as  bad 
as  my  daughter.  She  asked  me  the  same  thing." 

"I  wish  I  were  no  worse,"  said  the  old  man. 

"  You  speak  of  his  children,"  said  the  Englishman. 
"Hasn't  he  a  wife?  " 

"  No.  Two  daughters.  One  an  old  maid,  and  the 
other  a  young  girl,  whom  my  daughter  knew  at 
school,"  Hilary  answered. 

"  I  saw  the  young  lady  at  your  house  once,"  said 
Bellingham,  in  a  certain  way. 

"Yes.  She's  been  here  a  good  deal,  first  and 
last." 

"  Rather  a  high-stepping  young  person,  I  thought," 
said  Bellingham. 

"  She  is  a  proud  girl,"  Hilary  admitted.  "  Rather 
imperious,  in  fact." 

"  Ah,  what's  the  pride  of  a  young  girl  ?  "  said  Corey. 
"  Something  that  comes  from  her  love  and  goes  to  it ; 
no  separable  quality  ;  nothing  that's  for  herself." 

"Well,  I'm  not  sure  of  that,"  said  Hilary.  "In 
this  case  it  seems  to  have  served  her  own  turn.  It's 


278  THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY. 

enabled  her  simply  and  honestly  to  deny  the  fact  that 
her  father  ever  did  anything  wrong." 

"That's  rather  fine,"  Corey  remarked,  as  if  tast 
ing  it. 

"  And  what  will  it  enable  her  to  do,  now  that  he's 
come  out  and  confessed  the  frauds  himself  ? "  the 
Englishman  asked. 

Hilary  shrugged,  for  answer.  He  said  to  Belling- 
ham,  "  Charles,  I  want  you  to  try  some  of  these  crabs. 
I  got  them  for  you." 

"  Why,  this  is  touching,  Hilary,"  said  Bellingham, 
getting  his  fat  head  round  with  difficulty  to  look  at 
them  in  the  dish  the  man  was  bringing  to  his  side. 
"  But  I  don't  know  that  I  should  have  refused  them, 
even  if  they  had  been  got  for  Corey." 


IX. 

THEY  did  not  discuss  Northwick's  letter  at  the 
dinner-parties  in  Hatboro'  because,  socially  speaking, 
they  never  dined  there ;  but  the  stores,  the  shops,  the 
parlors,  buzzed  with  comment  on  it ;  it  became  a  part 
of  the  forms  of  salutation,  the  color  of  the  day's  joke. 
Gates,  the  provision  man,  had  to  own  the  error  of  his 
belief  in  Northwick's  death.  He  found  his  account  in 
being  the  only  man  to  own  that  he  ever  had  such  a 
belief ;  he  was  a  comfort  to  those  who  said  they  had 
always  had  their  doubts  of  it ;  the  ladies  of  South 
Hatboro',  who  declared  to  a  woman  that  they  had 
never  believed  it,  respected  the  simple  heart  of  a  man 
who  acknowledged  that  he  had  never  questioned  it. 
Such  a  man  was  not  one  to  cheat  his  customers  in 
quantity  or  quality;  that  stood  to  reason;  his  faith 
restored  him  to  the  esteem  of  many. 

Mr.  Gerrish  was  very  bitter  about  the  double  fraud 
which  he  said  Northwick  had  practised  on  the  com 
munity,  in  having  allowed  the  rumor  of  his  death  to 
gain  currency.  He  denounced  him  to  Mrs.  Munger, 
making  an  early  errand  from  South  Hatboro'  to  the 
village  to  collect  public  opinion,  as  a  person  who  had 
put  himself  beyond  the  pale  of  public  confidence,  and 
whose  professions  of  repentance  for  the  past,  and  good 


280  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

intention  for  the  future,  he  tore  to  shreds.  "  It  is  said, 
and  I  have  no  question  correctly,  that  hell  is  paved 
with  good  intentions  —  if  you  will  excuse  me,  Mrs. 
Hunger.  When  Mr.  Northwick  brings  forth  fruits 
meet  for  repentance  —  when  he  makes  the  first  pay 
ment  to  his  creditors  —  I  will  believe  that  he  is  sorry 
for  what  he  has  done,  and  not  till  then." 

"  That  is  true,"  said  Mrs.  Hunger.  "  I  wonder 
what  Mr.  Putney  will  have  to  say  to  all  this.  Can 
he  feel  that  his  skirts  are  quite  clean,  acting  that  way, 
as  the  family  counsel  of  the  Northwicks,  after  all  he 
used  to  say  against  him  ?  " 

Mr.  Gerrish  expressed  his  indifference  by  putting 
up  a  roll  of  muslin  on  the  shelf  while  he  rejoined,  "  I 
care  very  little  for  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Putney  on  any 
subject." 

In  some  places  Mrs.  Hunger  encountered  a  belief, 
which  she  did  not  discourage,  that  the  Northwick  girls 
had  known  all  along  that  their  father  was  alive,  and 
had  been  in  communication  with  him;  through  Putney, 
most  probably.  In  the  light  of  this  conjecture  the 
lawyer's  character  had  a  lurid  effect,  which  it  did  not 
altogether  lose  when  Jack  Wilmington  said,  bluntly, 
"  What  of  it  ?  He's  their  counsel.  He's  not  obliged 
to  give  the  matter  away.  He's  obliged  to  keep  it." 

"But  isn't  it  very  inconsistent,"  Mrs.  Hunger 
urged,  "  after  all  he  used  to  say  against  Hr.  North 
wick  ? " 

"  I  suppose  it's  a  professional,  not  a  personal  mat 
ter,"  said  Wilmington. 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  281 

"  And  then,  their  putting  on  mourning !  Just  think 
of  it !  "  Mrs.  Hunger  appealed  to  Mrs,  Wilmington, 
who  was  listening  to  her  nephew's  savagery  of  tone 
and  phrase  with  the  lazy  pleasure  she  seemed  always 
to  feel  in  it. 

"  Yes.    Do  you  suppose  they  meant  it  for  a  blind  ?  " 

"  Why,  that's  what  people  think  now,  don't  they  ?  " 

"  Oh,  /  don't  know.     What  do  you  think,  Jack  ?  " 

"  I  think  they're  a  pack  of  fools  !  "  he  blurted  out, 
like  a  man  who  avenges  on  the  folly  of  others  the 
hurt  of  his  own  conscience.  He  cast  a  look  of  brutal 
contempt  at  Mrs.  Munger,  who  said  she  thought  so, 
too. 

"  It  is  too  bad  the  way  people  allow  themselves  to 
talk,"  she  went  on.  "  To  be  sure,  Sue  Northwick  has 
never  done  anything  to  make  herself  loved  in  Hat- 
boro'  —  not  among  the  ladies  at  least." 

Mrs.  Wilmington  gave  a  spluttering  laugh,  and 
said,  "  And  I  suppose  it's  the  ladies  who  allow  them 
selves  to  talk  as  they  do.  I  can't  get  the  men  in  my 
family  to  say  a  word  against  her." 

Jack  scowled  his  blackest.  "  It  would  be  a  pitiful 
scoundrel  that  did.  Her  misfortunes  ought  to  make 
her  sacred  to  every  one  that  has  the  soul  of  a  man." 

"  Well,  so  it  does.  That  is  just  what  I  was  saying. 
The  trouble  is  that  they  don't  make  her  sacred  to 
every  one  that  has  the  soul  of  a  woman,"  Mrs.  Wil 
mington  teased. 

"  I  know  it  doesn't,"  Jack  returned,  in  helpless 
scorn,  as  he  left  Mrs.  Munger  alone  to  his  aunt. 


282  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Do  you  suppose  he  still  cares  anything  for  her  ?  " 
Mrs.  Hunger  asked,  with  cosey  confidentiality. 

"  Who  knows  ?  "  Mrs.  Wilmington  rejoined,  indo 
lently.  "It  would  be  very  poetical,  wouldn't  it,  if  he 
were  to  seize  the  opportunity  to  go  back  to  her  ?  " 

"  Beautiful !  "  sighed  Hrs.  Hunger.  "  I  do  like  a 
manly  man  ! " 

She  drove  home  through  the  village  slowly,  hoping 
for  a  chance  of  a  further  interchange  of  conjectures 
and  impressions  ;  but  she  saw  no  one  she  had  not 
already  talked  with  till  she  met  Dr.  Morrell,  driving 
out  of  the  avenue  from  his  house.  She  promptly  set 
her  phaeton  across  the  road  so  that  he  could  not  get 
by,  if  he  were  rude  enough  to  wish  it. 

"  Doctor,"  she  called  out,  "  what  do  you  think  of 
this  extraordinary  letter  of  Mr.  Northwick's  ?  " 

Dr.  MorrelPs  boyish  eyes  twinkled.  "  You  mean 
that  letter  in  the  JZvents  ?  Do  you  think  North  wick 
wrote  it  ?  " 

"  Why,  don't  you,  doctor  ?  "  she  questioned  back, 
with  a  note  of  personal  grievance  in  her  voice. 

"I'm  not  very  well  acquainted  with  his  style. 
Then,  you  think  he  did  write  it  ?  Of  course,  there 
are  always  various  opinions.  But  I  understood  Vou 
thought  he  was  burned  in  that  accident  last  winter." 

"Now,  doctor!  "  said  Hrs.  Hunger,  with  the  pout 
which  Putney  said  always  made  him  want  to  kill  her. 
"  You're  just  trying  to  tease  me  ;  I  know  you  are.  I'm 
going  to  drive  right  in  and  see  Hrs.  Morrell.  She  will 
tell  me  what  you  think." 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.          283 

"  I  don't  believe  you  can  see  her,"  said  the  doctor. 
"  She  isn't  at  all  well." 

u  Oh,  I'm  sorry  for  that.  I  don't  understand  what 
excuse  she  has,  though,  with  a  physician  for  her  hus 
band.  You  must  turn  homoeopathy.  Dr.  Morrell,  do 
you  think  it's  true  that  Jack  Wilmington  will  offer 
himself  to  Sue  Northwick,  now  that  it's  come  to  the 
worst  with  her  ?  Wouldn't  it  be  romantic  ?  " 

"  Very,"  said  the  doctor.  He  craned  his  head  out 
of  the  buggy,  as  if  to  see  whether  he  could  safely 
drive  into  the  ditch,  and  pass  Mrs.  Hunger.  He  said 
politely,  as  he  started,  "  Don't  disturb  yourself !  I  can 
get  by." 

She  sent  a  wail  of  reproach  after  him,  and  then 
continued  toward  South  Hatboro'.  As  she  passed  the 
lodge  at  the  gate  of  the  Northwick  avenue,  where  the 
sisters  now  lived,  she  noted  that  the  shades  were 
closely  drawn.  They  were  always  drawn  on  the  side 
toward  the  street,  but  Mrs.  Munger  thought  it  inter 
esting  that  she  had  never  noticed  it  before,  and  in  the 
dearth  of  material  she  made  the  most  of  it,  both  for 
her  own  emotion,  and  for  the  sensation  of  others  when 
she  reached  South  Hatboro'. 

Behind  the  drawn  shades  that  Mrs.  Muuger  noted, 
Adeline  Northwick  sat  crying  over  the  paper  that 
Elbridge  Newton  had  pushed  under  the  door  that 
morning.  It  was  limp  from  the  nervous  clutch  and 
tremor  of  her  hands,  and  wet  with  her  tears  ;  but  she 
kept  reading  her  father's  letter  in  it,  and  trying  to 
puzzle  out  of  it  some  hope  or  help.  "  He  must  be 


284  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

crazy,  he  must  be  crazy,"  she  moaned,  more  to  her 
self  than  to  Suzette,  who  sat  rigidly  and  silently  by. 
"  He  couldn't  have  been  so  cruel,  if  he  had  been  in  his 
right  mind ;  he  couldn't !  He  was  always  so  good  to 
us,  and  so  thoughtful ;  he  must  have  known  that  we 
had  given  him  up  for  dead,  long  ago  ;  and  he  has  let 
us  go  on  grieving  for  him  all  this  time.  It's  just  as  if 
he  had  come  back  from  death,  and  the  first  he  did 
was  to  tell  us  that  everything  they  said  against  him 
was  true,  and  that  everything  we  said  and  believed 
was  all  wrong.  How  could  he  do  it,  how  could  he  do 
it !  We  bore  to  think  he  was  dead ;  yes,  we  bore 
that,  and  we  didn't  complain  ;  but  this  is  more  than 
any  one  can  ask  us  to  bear.  Oh,  Suzette,  what  can 
we  say,  now  ?  What  can  we  say,  after  he's  confessed 
himself  that  he  took  the  money,  and  that  he  has  got 
part  of  it  yet  ?  But  I  know  he  didn't !  I  know  he 
hasn't !  He's  crazy  !  Oh,  poor,  poor  father  !  Don't 
you  think  he  must  be  crazy  ?  And  where  is  he  ?  Why 
don't  he  write  to  us,  and  tell  us  what  he  wants  us  to 
do  ?  Does  he  think  we  would  tell  any  one  where  he 
was?  That  shows  he's  out  of  his  mind.  I  always 
thought  that  if  he  could  come  back  to  life  somehow, 
he'd  prove  that  they  had  lied  about  him ;  and  now ! 
Oh,  it  isn't  as  if  it  were  merely  the  company  that  was 
concerned,  or  what  people  said  ;  but  it's  as  if  our  own 
father,  that  we  trusted  so  much,  had  broken  his  word 
to  us.  That  is  what  kills  me." 

The  day  passed.     They   sent  Mrs.   Newton    away 
when  she  came  to  help  them  at  dinner.     They  locked 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  285 

their  doors,  and  shut  themselves  in  from  the  world,  as 
mourners  do  with  death.  Adeline's  monologue  went 
on,  with  the  brief  responses  which  she  extorted  from 
Suzette,  and  at  last  it  ceased,  as  if  her  heart  had 
worn  itself  out  in  the  futile  repetition  of  its  griefs. 

Then  Suzette  broke  her  silence  with  words  that 
seemed  to  break  from  it  of  themselves  in  their  abrupt 
irrelevance  to  what  Adeline  had  last  said.  "  We 
must  give  it  up  !  " 

"  Give  what  up  ?  "  Adeline  groaned  back. 

"  The  house  —  and  the  farm  —  and  this  hovel. 
Everything  !  It  isn't  ours." 

"  Not  ours  ?  " 

"No.  That  letter  makes  it  theirs  —  the  people's 
whose  money  he  took.  We  must  send  for  Mr.  Put 
ney  and  tell  him  to  give  it  to  them.  He  will  know 
how." 

Adeline  looked  at  her  sister's  face  in  dismay.  She 
gasped  out,  "  Why,  but  Mr.  Putney  says  it's  ours,  and 
nobody  can  touch  it !  " 

"  That  was  before.  Now  it  is  theirs  ;  and  if  we 
kept  it  from  them  we  should  be  stealing  it.  How  do 
we  know  that  father  had  any  right  to  give  it  to  us 
when  he  did  ?  " 

"Suzette!" 

"  I  keep  thinking  such  things,  and  I  had  better  say 
them  unless  I  want  to  go  out  of  my  senses.  Once  I 
would  have  died  before  I  gave  it  up,  because  he  left 
it  to  us,  and  now  it  seems  as  if  I  couldn't  live  till  I 
gave  it  up,  because  he  left  it  to  us.  No,  I  can  never 


286  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

forgive  him,  if  lie  is  my  father.  I  can  never  speak  to 
him  again,  or  see  him ;  never !  He  is  dead  to  me, 
now!" 

The  words  seemed  to  appeal  to  the  contrary-mind- 
edness  that  lurks  in  such  natures  as  Adeline's.  "  Why, 
I  don't  see  what  there  is  so  wrong  about  father's  let 
ter,"  she  began.  "It  just  shows  what  I  always  said: 
that  his  mind  was  affected  by  his  business  troubles, 
and  that  he  wandered  away  because  he  couldn't  get 
them  straight.  And  now  it's  preyed  so  upon  him  that 
he's  beginning  to  believe  the  things  they  say  are  true, 
and  to  blame  himself.  That's  the  way  I  look  at  it." 

"  Adeline ! "  Suzette  commanded,  with  a  kind  of 
shriek,  "  Be  still !  You  know  you  don't  believe  that !  " 

Adeline  hesitated  between  her  awe  of  her  sister,  and 
her  wish  to  persist  in  a  theory  which,  now  that  she  had 
formulated  it  for  Suzette's  confusion,  she  found  effec 
tive  for  her  own  comfort.  She  ventured  at  last,  "  It 
is  what  I  said,  the  first  thing,  and  I  shall  always  say 
it,  Suzette  ;  and  I  have  a  right." 

"  Say  what  you  please.  I  shall  say  nothing.  But 
this  property  doesn't  belong  to  us  till  father  comes 
back  to  prove  it." 

"  Comes  back !  "  Adeline  gasped.  "  Why,  they'll 
send  him  to  State's  prison !  " 

"  They  won't  send  him  to  State's  prison  if  he's 
innocent,  and  if  he  isn't  —  " 

"  Suzette  !     Don't  you  dare  !  " 

"  But  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  We  must 
give  up  what  doesn't  belong  to  us.  Will  you  go  for 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  287 

Mr.  Putney,  or  shall  I  go  ?  I'm  not  afraid  to  be 
seen,  if  you  don't  like  to  go.  I  can  hold  up  my 
head  before  the  whole  world,  now  I  know  what  we 
ought  to  do,  and  we're  going  to  do  it ;  but  if  we 
kept  this  place  after  that  letter,  I  couldn't  even  look 
you  in  the  face  again."  She  continued  to  Adeline's 
silence,  **  Why,  we  needn't  either  of  us  go !  I  can 
get  Elbridge  to  go."  She  made  as  if  to  leave  the 
room. 

"  Wait !  I  can't  let  you  —  yet.  I  haven't  thought 
it  out,"  said  Adeline. 

"  Not  thought  it  out !  "  Suzette  went  back  and 
stood  over  her  where  she  sat  in  her  rocking-chair. 

"  No  !  "  said  Adeline,  shrinking  from  her  fierce 
look,  but  with  a  gathering  strength  of  resistance  in 
her  heart.  "  Because  you've  been  thinking  of  it,  you 
expect  me  to  do  what  you  say  in  an  instant.  The 
place  was  mother's,  and  when  she  died  it  came  to  me, 
and  I  hold  it  in  trust  for  both  of  us ;  that's  what  Mr. 
Putney  says.  Even  supposing  that  father  did  use 
their  money  —  and  I  don't  believe  he  did  —  I  don't 
see  why  I  should  give  up  mother's  property  to  them." 
She  waited  a  moment  before  she  said,  "  And  I  won't." 

"  Is  half  of  it  mine  ?  "  asked  Suzette. 

u  I  don't  know.     Yes,  I  suppose  so." 

"I'm  of  age,  and  I  shall  give  up  my  half.  I'm 
going  to  send  for  Mr.  Putney."  She  went  out  of  the 
room,  and  came  back  with  her  hat  and  gloves  on,  and 
her  jacket  over  her  arm.  She  had  never  been  so 

beautiful,  or  so  terrible.      "  Listen  to  me,  Adeline," 

10 


288  THE    QUALITY    OP    MERCY. 

she  said,  "I'm  going  out  to  send  Elbridge  for  Mr. 
Putney ;  and  when  he  comes  I  am  not  going  to  have 
any  squabbling  before  him.  You  can  do  what  you 
please  with  your  half  of  the  property,  but  I'm  going 
to  give  up  my  half  to  the  company.  Now,  if  you 
don't  promise  you'll  freely  consent  to  what  I  want  to 
do  with  my  own,  I  will  never  come  back  to  this  house, 
or  ever  see  you  again,  or  speak  to  you.  Do  you 
promise?" 

"  Oh,  well,  I  promise,"  said  Adeline,  forlornly,  with 
a  weak  dribble  of  tears.  "  You  can  take  your  half  of 
the  place  that  mother  owned,  and  give  it  to  the  men 
that  are  trying  to  destroy  father's  character !  But  I 
shall  never  say  that  I  wanted  you  should  do  it." 

"  So  that  you  don't  say  anything  against  it,  I 
don't  care  what  else  you  say."  Suzette  put  on  her 
jacket  and  stood  buttoning  it  at  her  soft  throat.  "  / 
do  it ;  and  I  do  it  for  mother's  sake  and  for  father's. 
I  care  as  much  for  them  as  you  do." 

In  the  evening  Putney  came,  and  she  told  him  she 
wished  him  to  contrive  whatever  form  was  necessary 
to  put  her  father's  creditors  in  possession  of  her 
half  of  the  estate.  "  My  sister  doesn't  feel  as  I  do 
about  it,"  she  ended.  "  She  thinks  they  have  no  right 
to  it,  and  we  ought  to  keep  it.  But  she  has  agreed  to 
let  me  give  my  half  up." 

Putney  went  to  the  door  and  threw  out  the  quid  of 
tobacco  which  he  had  been  absently  chewing  upon 
while  she  spoke.  "You  know/'  he  explained,  "that 
the  creditors  have  no  more  claim  on  this  estate,  in  law, 
than  they  have  on  my  house  and  lot?  " 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          289 

"  I  don't  know.     I  don't  care  for  the  law." 

"  The  case  isn't  altered  at  all,  you  know,  by  the  fact 
that  your  father  is  still  living,  and  your  title  isn't 
affected  by  any  of  the  admissions  made  in  the  letter 
he  has  published." 

"  I  understand  that,"  said  the  girl. 

"  Well,"  said  Putney,  "  I  merely  wanted  to  make 
sure  you  had  all  the  bearings  of  the  case.  The  thing 
can  be  done,  of  course.  There's  nothing  to  prevent 
any  one  giving  any  one  else  a  piece  of  property." 

He  remained  silent  for  a  moment,  as  if  doubtful 
whether  to  say  more,  and  Adeline  asked,  "  And  do 
you  believe  that  if  we  were  to  give  up  the  property, 
they'd  let  father  come  back  ?  " 

Putney  could  not  control  a  smile  at  her  simplicity. 
"  The  creditors  have  got  nothing  to  do  with  that,  Miss 
Northwick.  Your  father  has  been  indicted,  and  he's 
in  contempt  of  court  as  long  as  he  stays  away.  There 
can't  be  any  question  of  mercy  till  he  comes  back  for 
trial." 

"But  if  he  came  back,"  she  persisted,  "our  giv 
ing  up  the  property  would  make  them  easier  with 
him?" 

"  A  corporation  has  no  bowels  of  compassion,  Miss 
Northwick.  I  shouldn't  like  to  trust  one.  The  com 
pany  has  no  legal  claim  on  the  estate.  Unless  you 
think  it  has  a  moral  claim,  you'd  better  hold  on  to 
your  property." 

"  And  do  you  think  it  has  a  moral  claim  ?  " 

Putney  drew  a  long  breath.     "  Well,  that's  a  nice 


290  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

question."  He  stroked  his  trousers  down  over  his 
little  thin  leg,  as  he  sat.  "  I  have  some  peculiar  no 
tions  about  corporations.  I  don't  think  a  manufac 
turing  company  is  a  benevolent  institution,  exactly. 
It  isn't  even  a  sanitarium.  It  didn't  come  for  its 
health  ;  it  came  to  make  money,  and  it  makes  it  by  a 
profit  on  the  people  who  do  its  work  and  the  people 
who  buy  its  wares.  Practically,  it's  just  like  every 
thing  else  that  earns  its  bread  by  the  sweat  of  its 
capital  —  neither  better  nor  worse."  Launched  in 
this  direction,  Putney  recalled  himself  with  an  effort 
from  the  prospect  of  an  irrelevant  excursion  in  the 
fields  of  speculative  economy.  "  But  as  I  understand, 
the  question  is  not  so  much  whether  the  Ponkwasset 
Mills  have  a  moral  claim,  as  whether  you  have  a  moral 
obligation.  And  there  I  can't  advise.  You  would 
have  to  go  to  a  clergyman.  I  can  only  say  that  if  the 
property  were  mine  I  should  hold  on  to  it,  arid  let  the 
company  be  damned,  or  whatever  could  happen  to  a 
body  that  hadn't  a  soul  for  that  purpose." 

Putney  thrust  his  hand  into  his  pocket  for  his 
tobacco  ;  and  then  recollected  himself,  and  put  it 
back. 

"  There,  Suzette  !  "  said  Adeline. 

Suzette  had  listened  in  a  restive  silence,  while  Put 
ney  was  talking  with  her  sister.  She  said  in  answer 
to  him  :  "  I  don't  want  advice  about  that.  I  wished 
to  know  whether  I  could  give  up  my  part  of  the  es 
tate  to  the  company,  and  if  you  would  do  it  for  me  at 
once." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  291 

"Oh,  certainly,"  said  Putney.  "I  will  go  down  to 
Boston  to-morrow  morning  and  see  their  attorney." 

"  Their  attorney  ?  I  thought  you  would  have  to  go 
to  Mr.  Hilary." 

"  He  would  send  me  to  their  lawyer,  I  suppose. 
But  I  can  go  to  him  first,  if  you  wish." 

"  Yes,  I  do  wish  it,"  said  the  girl.  "  I  don't  under 
stand  about  the  company,  and  I  don't  care  for  it.  I 
want  to  offer  the  property  to  Mr.  Hilary.  Don't  say 
anything  but  just  that  I  wished  to  give  it  up,  and  my 
sister  consented.  Don't  say  a  single  word  more,  no 
matter  what  he  asks  you.  Will  you  ?  " 

"  I  will  do  exactly  what  you  say,"  answered  Putney. 
"  But  you  understand,  I  suppose,  don't  you,  that  in 
order  to  make  the  division,  the  whole  place  must  be 
sold  ?  " 

Suzette  looked  at  him  in  surprise.  Adeline  wailed 
out,  "  The  whole  place  sold  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  how  else  could  you  arrive  at  the  exact 
value  ?  " 

"  I  will  keep  the  house  and  the  grounds,  and  Su 
zette  may  have  the  farm." 

Putney  shook  his  head.  "  I  don't  believe  it  could 
be  done.  Perhaps  —  " 

"  Well,  then,"  said  Adeline,  "  I  will  never  let  the 
place  be  sold  in  the  world.  I  —  "  She  caught  Su- 
zette's  eye  and  faltered,  and  then  went  on  piteously, 
"  I  didn't  know  what  we  should  have  to  do  when  I 
promised.  But  I'll  keep  my  promise;  yes,  I  will. 
We  needn't  sign  the  papers  to-night,  need  we,  Mr. 
Putney  ?  It'll  do  in  the  morning  ?  " 


292  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  just  as  well,"  said  Putney.  "  It'll  take 
a  little  time  to  draw  up  the  writings." 

"  But  you  can  send  word  to  Mr.  Hilary  at  once  ?  " 
Suzette  asked. 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  if  you  wish." 

"I  do." 

"  It  won't  be  necessary." 

"  I  wish  it." 

Since  the  affair  must  so  soon  be  known  to  every 
body,  Putney  felt  justified  in  telling  his  wife  when  he 
went  home.  "  If  that  poor  old  girl  freely  consented, 
it  must  have  been  at  the  point  of  the  hairpin.  Of 
course,  the  young  one  is  right  to  obey  her  conscience, 
but  as  a  case  of  conscience,  what  do  you  think  of  it, 
Ellen  ?  And  do  you  think  one  ought  to  make  any 
one  else  obey  one's  conscience  ? " 

44  That's  a  hard  question,  Ralph.  And  I'm  not  sure 
that  she's  right.  Why  should  she  give  up  her  prop 
erty,  if  it  was  hers  so  long  ago  before  the  frauds  be 
gan  ?  Suppose  he  were  not  their  father,  and  the  case 
stood  just  as  it  does  ?  " 

"  Ah,  there's  something  very  strange  about  the 
duty  of  blood." 

"  Blood  ?  I  think  Suzette  Northwick's  case  of  con 
science  is  a  case  of  pride,"  said  Mrs.  Putney.  "  I  don't 
believe  she  cares  anything  about  the  right  and  wrong 
of  it.  She  just  wishes  to  stand  well  before  the  world. 
She  would  do  anything  for  that.  She's  as  hard!  " 

"  That's  what  the  world  will  say,  I've  no  doubt," 
Putney  admitted. 


THE  next  morning  Adeline  came  early  to  her  sis 
ter's  bed,  and  woke  her.  "  I  haven't  slept  all  night 
—  I  don't  see  how  you  could — and  I  want  you 
shouldn't  let  Mr.  Putney  send  that  letter  to  Mr.  Hil 
ary,  just  yet.  I  want  to  think  it  over,  first." 

"  You  want  to  break  your  promise  ?  "asked  Suzette, 
wide  awake  at  the  first  word. 

Adeline  began  to  cry.  "  I  want  to  think.  It  seems 
such  a  dreadful  thing  to  sell  the  place.  And  why  need 
you  hurry  to  send  off  a  letter  to  Mr.  Hilary  about  it? 
Won't  it  be  time  enough,  when  Mr.  Putney  has  the 
writings  ready  ?  I  think  it  will  look  very  silly  to  send 
word  beforehand.  I  could  see  that  Mr.  Putney  didn't 
think  it  was  business-like." 

"You  want  to  break  your  promise?"  Suzette  re 
peated. 

"  -2V0,  I  don't  want  to  break  my  promise.  But  I  do 
want  to  do  what's  right ;  and  I  want  to  do  what  I 
think  is  right.  I'm  almost  sick.  I  want  Elbridge 
should  stop  for  the  doctor  on  his  way  to  Mr.  Put 
ney's."  She  broke  into  a  convulsive  sobbing.  "  Oh, 
Suzette!  Do  give  me  a  little  more  time  !  Won't  you  ? 
And  as  soon  as  I  can  see  it  as  you  do  — " 

They  heard  the  rattling  of  a  key  in  the  back  door 


294  THE    QUALITY    OP   MERCY. 

of  the  cottage,  and  they  knew  it  was  Elbridge  coming 
to  make  the  fire  in  the  kitchen  stove,  as  he  always  did 
against  the  time  his  wife  should  come  to  get  breakfast. 
Suzette  started  up  from  her  pillow,  and  pulled  Ade 
line's  face  down  on  her  neck,  so  as  to  smother  the 
sound  of  her  sobs.  "  Hush  !  Don't  let  him  hear !  And 
I  wouldn't  let  any  one  know  for  the  world  that  we 
didn't  agree  !  You  can  think  it  over  all  day,  if  you 
want ;  and  I'll  stop  Mr.  Putney  from  writing  till  you 
think  as  /do.  But  be  still,  now !  " 

"  Yes,  yes  !  I  will,"  Adeline  whispered  back.  "  And 
I  won't  quarrel  with  you,  Sue  !  I  know  we  shall  think 
alike  in  the  end.  Only,  don't  hurry  me!  And  let 
Elbridge  get  the  doctor  to  come.  I'm  afraid  I'm 
going  to  be  down  sick. ' 

She  crept  sighing  back  to  bed,  and  after  a  little 
while,  Suzette  came,  dressed,  to  look  after  her.  "  I 
think  I'm  going  to  get  a  little  sleep,  now,"  she  said. 
"  But  don't  forget  to  stop  Mr.  Putney." 

Suzette  went  out  into  the  thin,  sweet  summer 
morning  air,  and  walked  up  and  down  the  avenue  be 
tween  the  lodge  and  the  empty  mansion.  She  had  not 
slept,  either ;  it  was  from  her  first  drowse  that  Ade 
line  had  wakened  her.  But  she  was  young,  and  the 
breath  of  the  cool,  southwest  wind  was  a  bath  of  rest 
to  her  fevered  senses.  She  felt  herself  grow  stronger 
in  it,  and  she  tried  to  think  what  she  ought  to  do.  If 
her  purpose  of  the  day  before  still  seemed  so  wholly 
and  perfectly  just,  it  seemed  very  difficult;  and  she 
began  to  ask  herself  whether  she  had  a  right  to  com- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  295 

pel  Adeline's  consent  to  it.  She  felt  the  perplexities 
of  the  world  where  good  and  evil  are  often  so  mixed 
that  when  the  problem  passes  from  thoughts  to  deeds, 
the  judgment  is  darkened  and  the  will  palsied.  Till 
now  the  wrong  had  always  appeared  absolutely  apart 
from  the  right ;  for  the  first  time  she  perceived  that  a 
great  right  might  involve  a  lesser  wrong ;  and  she  was 
daunted.  But  she  meant  to  fight  out  her  fight  wholly 
within  herself  before  she  spoke  with  Adeline  again. 

That  day  Matt  Hilary  came  over  from  his  farm  to 
see  Wade,  whom  he  found  as  before,  in  his  study 
at  the  church,  and  disposed  to  talk  over  North- 
wick's  letter.  "  It's  a  miserable  affair  ;  humiliating  ; 
heart-sickening.  That  poor  soul's  juggle  with  his 
conscience  is  a  most  pathetic  spectacle.  I  can't  bring 
myself  to  condemn  him  very  fiercely.  But  while 
others  may  make  allowance  for  him,  it's  ruinous  for 
him  to  excuse  himself.  That's  truly  perdition.  Don't 
you  feel  that  ?  "  Wade  asked. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  Matt  assented,  with  a  kind  of  absence. 
"  But  there  is  something  else  I  wanted  to  speak  with 
you  about ;  and  I  suppose  it's  this  letter  that's  made  it 
seem  rather  urgent  now.  You  know  when  I  asked 
you  once  about  Jack  Wilmington  —  " 

Wade  shook  his  head.  "  There  isn't  the  least  hope 
in  that  direction.  I'm  sure  there  isn't.  If  he  had 
cared  anything  for  the  girl,  he  would  have  shown  it 
long  ago  ! " 

"  I  quite  agree  with  you,"  said  Matt,  "  and  that 
isn't  what  I  mean.  But  if  it  would  have  been  right 


296  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

and  well  for  him  to  come  forward  at  such  a  time,  why 
shouldn't  some  other  man,  who  does  love  her?  "  He 
hurried  tremulously  on  :  "  Wade,  let  me  ask  you  one 
thing  more  !  You  have  seen  her  so  much  more  than 
I ;  and  I  didn't  know —  Is  it  possible —  Perhaps  I 
ought  to  ask  if  you  are  at  all  —  if  you  care  for  her  ?  " 

"  For  Miss  Northwick  ?  What  an  idea  ?  Not  the 
least  in  the  world !  Why  do  you  ask  ?  " 

"Because  /do!  "  said  Matt.  "I  care  everything 
for  her.  So  much  that  when  I  thought  of  my  love 
for  her,  I  could  not  bear  that  it  should  be  a  wrong 
to  any  living  soul  or  that  it  should  be  a  shadow's 
strength  between  her  and  any  possible  preference. 
And  I  came  here  with  my  mind  made  up  that  if  you 
thought  Jack  Wilmington  had  still  some  right  to  a 
hearing  from  her,  I  would  stand  back.  If  there  were 
any  hopes  for  him  from  himself  or  from  her,  I  should 
be  a  fool  not  to  stand  back.  And  I  thought  —  I 
thought  that  if  you,  old  fellow —  But  now,  it's  all 
right  —  all  right  —  " 

Matt  wrung  the  hand  which  Wade  yielded  him 
with  a  dazed  air,  at  first.  A  great  many  things 
went  through  Wade's  mind,  which  he  silenced  on 
their  way  to  his  lips.  It  would  not  do  to  impart  to 
Matt  the  impressions  of  a  cold  and  arrogant  nature 
which  the  girl  had  sometimes  given  him,  and  which  Matt 
could  not  have  received  in  the  times  of  trouble  and 
sorrow  when  he  had  chiefly  seen  her.  Matt's  confes 
sion  was  a  shock ;  Wade  was  scarcely  less  dismayed 
by  the  complications  which  it  suggested ;  but  he  could 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.  297 

no  more  impart  his  misgivings  than  his  impressions ; 
he  could  no  more  tell  Matt  that  his  father  would  be 
embarrassed  and  compromised  by  his  passion  than  he 
could  tell  him  that  he  did  not  think  Sue  Northwick 
was  worthy  of  it.  He  was  in  the  helpless  predica 
ment  that  confidants  often  find  themselves  in,  but  his 
final  perception  of  his  impossibilities  enabled  him  to 
return  the  fervid  pressure  of  Matt's  hand,  and  even 
to  utter  some  of  those  incoherencies  which  serve  the 
purpose  when  another  wishes  to  do  the  talking. 

"  Of  course,"  said  Matt,  "  I'm  ridiculous,  I  know 
that.  I  haven't  got  anything  to  found  my  hopes  on 
but  the  fact  that  there's  nothing  in  my  way  to  the  one 
insuperable  obstacle :  to  the  fact  that  she  doesn't  and 
can't  really  care  a  straw  for  me.  But  just  now  that 
seems  a  mere  bagatelle."  He  laughed  with  a  nervous 
joy,  and  he  kept  talking,  as  he  walked  up  and  down 
Wade's  study.  "  I  don't  know  that  I  have  the  hope 
of  anything ;  and  I  don't  see  how  I'm  to  find  out 
whether  I  have  or  not,  for  the  present.  You  know, 
Wade,"  he  went  on,  with  a  simple-hearted  sweetness, 
which  Wade  found  touching,  "  I'm  twenty-eight  years 
old,  and  I  don't  believe  I've  ever  been  in  love  before. 
Little  fancies,  of  course ;  summer  flirtations ;  every 
one  has  them ;  but  never  anything  serious,  anything 
like  this.  And  I  could  see,  at  home,  that  they  would 
be  glad  to  have  had  me  married.  I  rather  think  my 
father  believes  that  a  good  sensible  wife  would  bring 
me  back  to  faith  in  commercial  civilization."  He 
laughed  out  his  relish  of  the  notion,  but  went  on, 


298  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

gravely :  "  Poor  father !  This  whole  business  lias 
been  a  terrible  trial  to  him." 

Wade  wondered  at  his  ability  to  separate  the 
thought  of  Suzette  from  the  thought  of  her  father; 
he  inferred  from  his  ability  to  do  so  that  he  must 
have  been  thinking  of  her  a  great  deal,  but  he  asked, 
"Isn't  it  all  rather  sudden,  Matt?"  Wade  put  on  a 
sympathetic,  yet  diplomatic,  smile  for  the  purpose  of 
this  question. 

"Not  for  me!"  said  Matt.  He  added,  not  very 
consequently,  "I  suppose  it  must  have  happened  to 
me  the  first  moment  I  saw  her  here  that  day  Louise 
and  I  came  up  about  the  accident.  I  couldn't  truly 
say  that  she  had  ever  been  out  of  my  mind  a  moment 
since.  No,  there's  nothing  sudden  about  it,  though  I 
don't  suppose  these  things  usually  take  a  great  deal  of 
time,"  Matt  ended,  philosophically. 

Wade  left  the  dangerous  ground  he  found  himself 
on.  He  asked,  "  And  your  family,  do  they  know  of 
your  —  feeling?" 

"  Not  in  the  least !  "  Matt  answered,  radiantly.  "  It 
will  come  on  them  like  a  thunder-clap !  If  it  ever 
comes  on  them  at  all,"  he  added,  despondently. 

Wade  had  his  own  belief  that  there  was  no  cause 
for  despondency  in  the  aspect  of  the  affair  that  Matt 
was  looking  at.  But  he  could  not  offer  to  share  his 
security  with  Matt,  who  continued  to  look  serious,  and 
said,  presently,  "  I  suppose  my  father  might  think  it 
complicated  his  relation  to  the  Northwicks'  trouble, 
and  I  have  thought  that,  too.  It  makes  it  very  dim- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  299 

cult.  My  father  is  to  be  considered.  You  know, 
Wade,  I  think  there  are  very  few  men  like  my 
father?" 

"  There  are  none,  Matt !  "  said  Wade. 

"  I  don't  mean  he's  perfect ;  and  I  think  his  ideas 
are  wrong,  most  of  them.  But  his  conduct  is  as  right 
as  the  conduct  of  any  quick-tempered  man  ever  was  in 
the  Avorld.  I  know  him,  and  I  don't  believe  a  son 
ever  loved  his  father  more ;  and  so  I  want  to  consider 
him  all  I  can." 

"  Ah,  I  know  that,  my  dear  fellow !  " 

"  But  the  question  is,  how  far  can  I  consider  him  ? 
There  are  times,"  said  Matt,  and  he  reddened,  and 
laughed  consciously,  "  when  it  seems  as  if  I  couldn't 
consider  him  at  all ;  the  times  when  I  have  some  faint 
hope  that  she  will  listen  to  me,  or  won't  think  me 
quite  a  brute  to  speak  to  her  of  such  a  thing  at  such  a 
moment.  Then  there  are  other  times  when  I  think 
he  ought  to  be  considered  to  the  extreme  of  giving  her 
up  altogether ;  but  those  are  the  times  when  I  know 
that  I  shall  never  have  her  to  give  up.  Then  it's  an 
easy  sacrifice." 

"  I  understand,"  said  Wade,  responding  with  a  smile 
to  Matt's  self-satire. 

Matt  went  on,  and  as  he  talked  he  sometimes  walked 
to  Wade's  window  and  looked  out,  sometimes  he 
stopped  and  confronted  him  across  his  desk.  "  It's 
cowardly,  in  a  way,  not  to  speak  at  once  —  to  leave 
her  to  suffer  it  out  to  the  end  alone ;  but  I  think  that's 
what  I  owe  to  my  father.  No  real  harm  can  come  to 


300  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

her  from  waiting.  I  risk  the  unfair  chance  I  might 
gain  by  speaking  now  when  she  sorely  needs  help; 
but  if  ever  she  came  to  think  she  had  given  herself 
through  that  need  —  No,  it  wouldn't  do  !  My  father 
can  do  more  for  her  if  he  isn't  hampered  by  my  feel 
ing,  and  Louise  can  be  her  friend —  What  do  you 
think,  Wade  ?  I've  tried  to  puzzle  it  out,  and  this  is 
the  conclusion  I've  come  to.  Is  it  rather  cold-blooded  ? 
I  know  it  isn't  at  all  like  the  lovemaking  in  the  books. 
I  suppose  I  ought  to  go  and  fling  myself  at  her  feet,  in 
defiance  of  all  the  decencies  and  amenities  and  oblio-a- 

O 

tions  of  life,  but  somehow  I  can't  bring  myself  to  do 
it.  I've  thought  it  all  conscientiously  over,  and  I 
think  I  ought  to  wait." 

"  I  think  so,  too,  Matt.  I  think  your  decision  is  a 
just  man's,  and  it's  a  true  lover's,  too.  It  does  your 
heart  as  much  honor  as  your  head,"  and  Wade  gave 
him  his  hand  now,  with  no  mental  reservation. 

"  Do  you  really  think  so,  Caryl  ?  That  makes  me 
very  happy  !  I  was  afraid  it  might  look  calculating 
and  self-interested  —  " 

"  You  self-interested,  Matt !  " 

"  Oh,  I  know !  But  is  it  considering  my  duty  too 
much,  my  love  too  little  ?  If  I  love  her,  hasn't  she 
the  first  claim  upon  me,  before  father  and  mother, 
brother  and  sister,  before  all  the  world  ?  " 

"  If  you  are  sure  she  loves  you,  yes." 

Matt  laughed.  "  Ah,  that's  true  ;  I  hadn't  thought 
of  that  little  condition  !  Perhaps  it  changes  the  whole 
situation.  Well,  I  must  go,  now.  I've  just  run  over 
from  the  farm  to  see  you  —  " 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  301 

"I  inferred  that  from  your  peasant  garb,"  said 
Wade,  with  a  smile  at  the  rough  farm  suit  Matt  had 
on  :  his  face  refined  it  and  made  it  look  mildly  im 
probable.  "  Besides,"  said  Wade,  as  if  the  notion  he 
recurred  to  were  immediately  relevant  to  Matt's  dress, 
"unless  you  are  perfectly  sure  of  yourself  beyond  any 
chance  of  change,  you  owe  it  to  her  as  well  as  your 
self,  to  take  time  before  speaking." 

"I  am  perfectly  sure,  and  I  shall  never  change," 
said  Matt,  with  a  shade  of  displeasure  at  the  sugges 
tion.  "  If  there  were  nothing  but  that  I  should  not 
take  a  moment  of  time."  He  relented  and  smiled 
again,  in  adding,  "But  I  have  decided  now,  and  I 
shall  wait.  And  I'm  very  much  obliged  to  you,  old 
fellow,  for  talking  the  matter  over  with  me,  and  help 
ing  me  to  see  it  in  the  right  light." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Matt !  "  said  Wade,  in  deprecation. 

"  Yes.  And  oh,  by  the  way !  I've  got  hold  of  a 
young  fellow  that  I  think  you  could  do  something  for, 
Wade.  Do  you  happen  to  remember  the  article  on 
the  defalcation  in  the  Boston  Abstract  f  " 

"Yes,  I  do  remember  that.  Didn't  it  treat  the 
matter,  if  I  recall  it,  very  humanely  —  too  humanely, 
perhaps?" 

"  Perhaps,  from  one  point  of  view,  too  humanely. 
Well,  it's  the  writer  of  that  article  —  a  young  fellow, 
not  twenty-five,  yet  as  completely  at  odds  with  life 
as  .any  one  I  ever  saw.  He  has  a  great  deal  of  talent, 
and  no  health  or  money ;  so  he's  toiling  feebly  for  a 
living  on  a  daily  newspaper,  instead  of  making  litera- 


302  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

ture.  He  was  a  reporter  up  to  the  time  he  wrote 
that  article,  but  the  managing  editor  is  a  man  who 
recognizes  quality  ;  he's  fond  of  Maxwell  —  that's  the 
fellow's  name  —  and  since  then  he's  given  him  a 
chance  in  the  office,  at  social  topics.  But  he  hasn't 
done  very  well ;  the  fact  is,  the  boy's  too  literary, 
and  he's  out  of  health,  and  he  needs  rest  and  the 
comfort  of  appreciative  friendship.  I  want  you  to 
meet  him.  I've  got  him  up  at  my  place  out  of  the 
east  winds.  You'll  be  interested  in  him  as  a  type  — 
the  artistic  type  cynicised  by  the  hard  conditions  of 
life — newspaper  conditions,  and  then  economic  con 
ditions." 

Matt  smiled  with  satisfaction  in  what  he  felt  to  be 
his  very  successful  formulation  of  Maxwell. 

Wade  said  he  should  be  very  glad  to  meet  him  ;  and 
if  he  could  be  of  any  use  to  him  he  should  be  even 
more  glad.  But  his  mind  was  still  upon  Matt's  love 
affair,  and  as  they  wrung  each  other's  hands,  once 
more  he  said,  "  I  think  you've  decided  so  wisely, 
Matt ;  and  justly  and  unselfishly." 

"  It's  involuntary  unselfishness,  if  it's  unselfishness 
at  all,"  said  Matt.  He  did  not  go  ;  Wade  stood  bare 
headed  with  him  at  the  outer  door  of  his  study.  After 
awhile  he  said  with  embarrassment,  "  Wade  !  Do  you 
think  it  would  seem  unfeeling — or  out  of  taste,  at  all 
• — if  I  went  to  see  her  at  such  a  time  ?  " 

"  Why,  I  can't  imagine  your  doing  anything  out  of 
taste,  Matt." 

"  Don't  be  so  smooth,  Caryl !     You  know  what  I 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  303 

mean.     Louise   sent   some  messages   by   me   to  her. 
Will  you  take  them,  or  —  " 

"  I  certainly  see  no  reason  why  you  shouldn't  de 
liver  Miss  Hilary's  messages  yourself." 

"Well,  I  do,''  said   Matt,     "But  you  needn't  be 
afraid." 
20 


XL 

MATT  took  the  lower  road  that  wound  away  from 
Wade's  church  toward  the  Northwick  place ;  but  as  he 
went,  he  kept  thinking  that  he  must  not  really  try  to 
see  Suzette.  It  would  be  monstrous,  at  such  a  time ; 
out  of  all  propriety,  of  all  decency  ;  it  would  be  tak 
ing  advantage  of  her  helplessness  to  intrude  upon  her 
the  offer  of  help  and  of  kindness  which  every  instinct 
of  her  nature  must  revolt  from.  There  was  only  one 
thing  that  could  justify  his  coming,  and  that  was  im 
possible.  Unless  he  came  to  tell  her  that  he  loved 
her,  and  to  ask  her  to  let  him  take  her  burden  upon 
him,  to  share  her  shame  and  her  sorrow  for  his  love's 
sake,  he  had  no  right  to  see  her.  At  moments  it 
seemed  as  if  that  were  right  and  he  could  do  it,  no 
matter  how  impossible,  and  then  he  almost  ran  for 
ward  ;  but  only  to  check  himself,  to  stop  short,  and 
doubt  whether  not  to  turn  back  altogether.  By  such 
faltering  progresses,  he  found  himself  in  the  North- 
wick  avenue  at  last,  and  keeping  doggedly  on  from 
the  mansion,  which  the  farm  road  had  brought  him  to, 
until  he  reached  the  cottage  at  the  avenue  gate.  On 
the  threshold  drooped  a  figure  that  the  sight  of  set 
his  heart  beating  with  a  stifling  pulse  in  his  throat,  and 
he  floundered  on  till  he  made  out  that  this  languid 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          305 

figure  was  Adeline.  He  could  have  laughed  at  the 
irony,  the  mockery  of  the  anticlimax,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  face  that  the  old  maid  turned  upon  him  at 
the  approach  of  his  footfalls,  and  the  pleasure  that 
lighted  up  its  pathos  when  she  recognized  him. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Hilary !  "  she  said ;  and  then  she  could 
not  speak,  for  the  twitching  of  her  lips  and  the  trem 
bling  of  her  chin. 

He  took  her  hand  in  silence,  and  it  seemed  natural 
for  him  to  do  that  reverent  and  tender  thing  which  is 
no  longer  a  part  of  our  custom  ;  he  bent  over  it  and 
kissed  the  chill,  bony  knuckles. 

She  drew  her  hand  away  to  find  her  handkerchief 
and  wipe  her  tears.  "  I  suppose  you've  come  to  see 
Suzette ;  but  she's  gone  up  to  the  village  to  talk  with 
Mr.  Putney ;  he's  our  lawyer." 

"  Yes,"  said  Matt. 

"  I  presume  I  don't  need  to  talk  to  you  about  that 
—  letter.  I  think,  —  and  I  believe  Suzette  will  think 
so  too  in  the  end,  —  that  his  mind  is  affected,  and  he 
just  accuses  himself  of  all  these  things  because  they've 
been  burnt  into  it  so.  How  are  your  father  and 
mother  ?  And  your  sister  ?  " 

She  broke  off  with  these  questions,  he  could  see,  to 
stay  herself  in  what  she  wished  to  say.  "  They  are 
all  well.  Father  is  still  in  Boston ;  but  mother  and 
Louise  are  at  the  farm  with  me.  They  sent  their 
love,  and  they  are  anxious  to  know  if  there  is  any 
thing— " 

"Thank  you.     Will   you  sit  down   here?     It's  so 


306  THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY. 

close  indoors."  She  made  room  for  him  on  the 
threshold,  but  he  took  the  step  below. 

"I  hope  Miss  Suzette  is  well ? " 

"  Why,  thank  you,  not  very  well.  There  isn't  any 
thing  really  the  matter;  but  we  didn't  either  of  us 
sleep  very  well  last  night ;  we  were  excited.  I  don't 
know  as  I  ought  to  tell  you,"  she  began.  "  I 
don't  suppose  it's  a  thing  you  would  know  about, 
any  way ;  but  I've  got  to  talk  to  somebody  —  " 

"Miss  Northwick,"  said  Matt,  "  if  there  is  anything 
in  the  world  that  I  can  do  for  you,  or  that  you  even 
hope  I  can  do,  I  beg  you  to  let  me  hear  it.  I  should 
be  glad  beyond  all  words  to  help  you." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  as  anything  can  be  done,"  she 
began,  after  the  fresh  gush  of  tears  which  were  her 
thanks,  "  but  Suzette  and  I  have  been  talking  it  over 
a  good  deal,  and  we  thought  we  would  like  to  see  your 
father  about  it.  You  see,  Suzette  can't  feel  right 
about  our  keeping  the  place  here,  if  father's  really 
done  what  he  says  he's  done.  We  don't  believe  he 
has  ;  but  if  he  has,  he  has  got  to  be  found  somewhere, 
and  made  to  give  up  the  money  he  says  he  has  got. 
Suzette  thinks  we  ought  to  give  up  the  money  we  have 
got  in  the  bank  —  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand 
dollars  —  and  she  wanted  I  should  let  her  give  up  her 
half  of  the  place,  here ;  and  at  first  I  did  say  she  might. 
But  come  to  find  out  from  Mr.  Putney,  the  whole  place 
would  have  to  be  sold  before  it  could  be  divided,  and 
I  couldn't  seem  to  let  it.  That  was  what  we  —  dis 
puted  about.  Yes  !  We  had  a  dispute  ;  but  it's  all  right 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          307 

now,  or  it  will  be,  when  we  get  the  company  to  say 
they  will  stop  the  lawsuit  against  father,  if  he  will 
give  up  the  money  he's  got,  and  we  will  give  up  the 
place.  Mr.  Putney  seemed  to  think  the  company 
couldn't  stop  it ;  but  I  don't  see  why  a  rich  corpora 
tion  like  that  couldn't  do  almost  anything  it  wanted  to 
with  its  money." 

Pier  innocent  corruption  did  not  shock  Matt,  nor 
her  scheme  for  defeating  justice ;  but  he  smiled  for 
lornly  at  the  hopelessness  of  it.  "I'm  afraid  Mr. 
Putney  is  right."  He  was  silent,  and  then  at  the 
despair  that  came  into  her  face,  he  hurried  on  to  say, 
"  But  I  will  see  my  father,  Miss  Northwick ;  I  will 
go  down  to  see  him  at  once ;  and  if  anything  can  be 
honorably  and  fairly  done  to  save  your  father,  I  am 
sure  he  will  try  to  do  it  for  your  sake.  But  don't 
expect  anything,"  he  said,  getting  to  his  feet  and  put 
ting  out  his  hand  to  her. 

"  No,  no ;  I  won't,"  she  said,  with  gratitude  that 
wrung  his  heart.  "  And  —  won't  you  wait  and  see 
Suzette  ?  " 

Matt  reddened.  "  No ;  I  think  not  now.  But, 
perhaps,  I  will  come  back ;  and  —  and  —  I  will  come 
soon  again.  Good-by  !  " 

"  Mr.  Hilary !  "  she  called  after  him.  He  ran  back 
to  her.  "  If  —  if  your  father  don't  think  anything  can 
be  done,  I  don't  want  he  should  say  anything  about  it." 

"  Oh,  no ;  certainly  not." 

"  And,  Mr.  Hilary  !  Don't  you  let  Suzette  know  I 
spoke  to  you.  /'//  tell  her." 


308  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"Why,  of  course." 

On  his  way  to  Boston  the  affair  seemed  to  grow  less 
and  less  impossible  to  Matt ;  but  he  really  knew  noth 
ing  of  the  legal  complications ;  and  when  he  proposed 
it  to  his  father,  old  Hilary  shook  his  head.  "  I  don't 
believe  it  could  be  done.  The  man's  regularly  in 
dicted,  and  he's  in  contempt  of  court  as  long  as  he 
doesn't  present  himself  for  trial.  That's  the  way  I 
understand  it.  But  I'll  see  our  counsel.  Whose 
scheme  is  this  ?  " 

"I  don't  know.  Miss  Northwick  told  me  of  it; 
but  I  fancied  Miss  Suzette  —  " 

"Yes,"  said  Hilary.  "It  must  have  cost  her  al 
most  her  life  to  give  up  her  faith  in  that  pitiful  ras 
cal." 

"  But  after  she  had  done  that,  it  would  cost  her 
nothing  to  give  up  the  property,  and  as  I  understood 
Miss  Northwick,  that  was  her  sister's  first  impulse. 
She  wished  to  give  up  her  half  of  the  estate  uncondi 
tionally  ;  but  Miss  Northwick  wouldn't  consent,  and 
they  compromised  on  the  conditions  she  told  me  of." 

"Well,"  said  Hilary,  "I  think  Miss  Northwick 
showed  the  most  sense.  But  of  course,  Sue's  a  noble 
girl.  She  almost  transfigures  that  old  scoundrel  of  a 
father  of  hers.  That  fellow — Jack  Wilmington  — 

O 

ought  to  come  forward  now  and  show  himself  a  man, 
if  he  is  one.  Any  man  might  be  proud  of  such  a 
girl's  love — and  they  say  she  was  in  love  with  him. 
But  he  seems  to  have  preferred  to  dangle  after  his 
uncle's  wrife.  He  isn't  good  enough  for  her,  and  prob 
ably  he  always  knew  it." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY,  309 

Matt  profited  by  the  musing  fit  that  came  upon  his 
father,  to  go  and  look  at  the  picture  over  the  mantel. 
It  was  not  a  new  picture ;  but  he  did  not  feel  that  he 
was  using  his  father  quite  frankly  ;  and  he  kept  look 
ing  at  it  for  that  reason. 

"If  those  poor  creatures  gave  up  their  property, 
what  would  they  do?  They've  absolutely  nothing 
else  in  the  world!  " 

"  I  fancy,"  said  Matt,  "  that  isn't,  a  consideration 
that  would  weigh  with  Suzette  Northwick." 

"  No.  If  there's  anything  in  heredity,  the  father  of 
such  a  girl  must  have  some  good  in  him.  Of  course, 
they  wouldn't  be  allowed  to  suffer." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  the  company  would  regard  the 
fact  that  it  had  no  legal  claim  on  the  property,  and 
would  recognize  it  in  their  behalf  ?  " 

"  The  company !  "  Hilary  roared.  "  The  company 
has  no  right  to  that  property,  moral  or  legal.  But  we 
should  act  as  if  we  had.  If  it  were  unconditionally 
offered  to  us,  we  ought  to  acknowledge  it  as  an  act  of 
charity  to  us,  and  not  of  restitution.  But  every  man 
Jack  of  us  would  hold  out  for  a  right  to  it  that  didn't 
exist,  and  we  should  take  it  as  part  of  our  due  ;  and  I 
should  be  such  a  coward  that  I  couldn't  tell  the  Board 
what  I  thought  of  our  pusillanimity." 

"  It  seems  rather  hard  for  men  to  act  magnanimously 
in  a  corporate  capacity,  or  even  humanely,"  said  Matt. 
"  But  I  don't  know  but  there  would  be  an  obscure 
and  negative  justice  in  such  action.  It  would  be  right 
for  the  company  to  accept  the  property,  if  it  was  right 


310  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

for  Northwick's  daughter  to  offer  it,  and  I  think  it  is 
most  unquestionably  right  for  her  to  do  that." 

"  Do  you,  Matt  ?  Well,  well,"  said  Hilary,  willing 
to  be  comforted,  "  perhaps  you're  right.  You  must 
send  Louise  and  your  mother  over  to  see  her." 

"Well,  perhaps  not  just  now.  She's  proud  and 
sensitive,  and  perhaps  it  might  seem  intrusive,  at  this 
juncture  ?  " 

"  Intrusive  ?  Nonsense  !  She'll  be  glad  to  see  them. 
Send  them  right  over !  " 

Matt  knew  this  was  his  father's  way  of  yielding  the 
point,  and  he  went  away  with  his  promise  to  say  noth 
ing  of  the  matter  they  had  talked  of  till  he  heard  from 
Putney.  After  that  would  be  time  enough  to  ascer 
tain  the  whereabouts  of  Northwick,  which  no  one 
knew  yet,  not  even  his  own  children. 

What  his  father  had  said  in  praise  of  Suzette  gave 
his  love  for  her  unconscious  approval ;  but  at  the  same 
time  it  created  a  sort  of  comedy  situation,  and  Matt 
was  as  far  from  the  comic  as  he  hoped  he  was  from 
the  romantic,  in  his  mood.  When  he  thought  of  going 
direct  to  her,  he  hated  to  be  going,  like  the  hero  of  a 
novel,  to  offer  himself  to  the  heroine  at  the  moment 
her  fortunes  were  darkest ;  but  he  knew  that  he  was 
only  like  that  outwardly,  and  inwardly  was  simply  and 
humbly  her  lover,  who  wished  in  any  way  or  any 
measure  he  might,  to  be  her  friend  and  helper.  He 
thought  he  might  put  his  offer  in  some  such  form  as 
would  leave  her  free  to  avail  herself  a  little  if  not 
much  of  his  longing  to  comfort  and  support  her  in  her 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  311 

trial.  But  at  last  he  saw  that  he  could  do  nothing  for 
the  present,  and  that  it  would  be  cruel  and  useless  to 
give  her  more  than  the  tried  help  of  a  faithful  friend. 
He  did  not  go  back  to  Hatboro',  as  he  longed  to  do. 
He  went  back  to  his  farm,  and  possessed  his  soul  in 
such  patience  as  he  could. 


XII. 

SUZETTE  came  back  from  Putney's  office  with  such 
a  disheartened  look  that  Adeline  had  not  the  courage 

O 

to  tell  her  of  Matt's  visit  and  the  errand  he  had  under 
taken  for  her.  The  lawyer  had  said  no  more  than 
that  he  did  not  believe  anything  could  be  done.  He 
was  glad  they  had  decided  not  to  transfer  their  prop 
erty  to  the  company,  without  first  trying  to  make 
interest  for  their  father  with  it ;  that  was  their  right, 
and  their  duty ;  and  he  would  try  what  could  be  done  ; 
but  he  warned  Suzette  that  he  should  probably  fail. 

"  And  then  what  did  he  think  we  ought  to  do  ?  " 
Adeline  asked. 

"  He  didn't  say,"  Suzette  answered. 

"  I  presume,"  Adeline  went  on,  after  a  little  pause, 
"  that  you  would  like  to  give  up  the  property,  any 
way.  "Well,  you  can  do  it,  Suzette."  The  joy  she 
might  have  expected  did  not  show  itself  in  her  sister's 
face,  and  she  added,  "  I've  thought  it  all  over,  and  I 
see  it  as  you  do,  now.  Only,"  she  quavered,  "  I  do 
want  to  do  all  I  can  for  poor  father,  first." 

u  Yes,"  said  Suzette,  spiritlessly,  "  Mr.  Putney  said 
we  ought." 

"  Sue,"  said  Adeline,  after  another  little  pause,  "  I 
don't  know  what  you'll  think  of  me,  for  what  I've 
done.  Mr.  Hilary  has  been  here  —  " 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  313 

"Mr.  Hilary!" 

"Yes.     He  came  over  from  his  farm  —  " 

"  Oh !  I  thought  you  meant  his  father."  The  color 
began  to  mount  into  the  giiTs  cheeks. 

"  Louise  and  Mrs.  Hilary  sent  their  love,  and  they 
all  want  to  do  anything  they  can  ;  and  —  and  I  told 
Mr.  Hilary  what  we  were  going  to  try ;  and  —  he 
said  he  would  speak  to  his  father  about  it ;  and  —  Oh, 
Suzette,  I'm  afraid  I've  done  more  than  I  ought !  " 

Suzette  was  silent,  and  then,  "No,"  she  said,  "I 
can't  see  what  harm  there  could  be  in  it." 

"He  said,"  Adeline  pursued  with  joyful  relief, 
"  he  wouldn't  let  his  father  speak  to  the  rest  about  it, 
till  we  were  ready  ;  and  I  know  he'll  do  all  he  can  for 
us.  Don't  you  ?  " 

Sue  answered,  "  I  don't  see  what  harm  it  can  do  for 
him  to  speak  to  his  father.  I  hope,  Adeline,"  she 
added,  with  the  severity  Adeline  had  dreaded,  "  you 
didn't  ask  it  as  a  favor  from  him  ? '' 

"  No,  no !  I  didn't  indeed,  Sue  !  It  came  natur 
ally.  He  offered  to  do  it." 

"Well,"  said  Suzette,  with  a  sort  of  relaxation,  and 
she  fell  back  in  the  chair  where  she  had  been  sitting. 

"  I  don't  see,"  said  Adeline,  with  an  anxious  look 
at  the  girl's  worn  face,  '*  but  what  we'd  both  better 
have  the  doctor." 

"Ah,  the  doctor!"  cried  Suzette.  "  What  can  the 
doctor  do  for  troubles  like  ours  ?  "  She  put  up  her 
hands  to  her  face,  and  bowed  herself  on  them,  and 
sobbed,  with  the  first  tears  she  had  shed  since  the 
worst  had  come  upon  them. 


314  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

The  company's  counsel  submitted  Putney's  over 
tures,  as  he  expected,  to  the  State's  attorney,  in  the 
hypothetical  form,  and  the  State's  attorney,  as  Putney 
expected,  dealt  with  the  actuality.  He  said  that  when 
Northwick's  friends  communicated  with  him  and  ascer 
tained  his  readiness  to  surrender  the  money  he  had 
with  him,  and  to  make  restitution  in  every  possible 
way,  it  would  be  time  to  talk  of  a  nolle  prosequi. 
In  the  meantime,  by  the  fact  of  absconding  he  was 
in  contempt  of  court.  He  must  return  and  submit 
himself  for  trial,  and  take  the  chance  of  a  merciful 
sentence. 

There  could  be  no  other  answer,  he  said,  and  he 
could  give  none  for  Putney  to  carry  back  to  the  de 
faulter's  daughters. 

Suzette  received  it  in  silence,  as  if  she  had  nerved 
herself  up  to  bear  it  so.  Adeline  had  faltered  be 
tween  her  hopes  and  fears,  but  she  had  apparently 
decided  how  she  should  receive  the  worst,  if  the  worst 
came. 

"  Well,  then,"  she  said,  "  we  must  give  up  the  place. 
You  can  get  the  papers  ready,  Mr.  Putney." 

"  I  will  do  whatever  you  say,  Miss  Northwick." 

"Yes,  and  I  don't  want  you  to  think  that  I  don't 
want  to  do  it.  It's  my  doing  now ;  and  if  my  sister 
was  all  against  it,  I  should  wish  to  do  it  all  the 
same." 

Matt  Hilary  learned  from  his  father  the  result  of 
the  conference  with  the  State's  attorney,  and  he  came 
up  to  Hatboro'  the  next  day,  to  see  Putney  on  his 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          315 

father's  behalf,  arid  to  express  the  wish  of  his  family 
that  Mr.  Putney  would  let  them  do  anything  he  could 
think  of  for  his  clients.  He  got  his  message  out  bung- 
lingly,  with  embarrassed  circumlocution  and  repetition  ; 
but  this  was  what  it  came  to  in  the  end. 

Putney  listened  with  sarcastic  patience,  shifting  the 
tobacco  in  his  mouth  from  one  thin  cheek  to  the  other, 
and  letting  his  fierce  blue  eyes  burn  on  Matt's  kindly 
face. 

"  Well,  sir,"  he  said,  "  what  do  you  think  can  be 
done  for  two  women,  brought  up  as  ladies,  who  choose 
to  beggar  themselves  ?  " 

"  Is  it  so  bad  as  that  ?  "  Matt  asked. 

"  Why,  you  can  judge  for  yourself.  My  present 
instructions  are  to  make  their  whole  estate  over  to  the 
Poukwasset  Mills  Company  —  " 

"  But  I  thought  —  I  thought  they  might  have  some 
thing  besides  —  something —  " 

"  There  was  a  little  money  in  the  bank  that  North- 
wrick  placed  there  to  their  credit  when  he  went  away ; 
but  I've  had  their  instructions  to  pay  that  over  to 
your  company,  too.  I  suppose  they  will  accept 
it?" 

"  It  isn't  my  company,"  said  Matt.  "  I've  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  it  —  or  any  company.  But  I've 
no  doubt  they'll  accept  it." 

"They  can't  do  otherwise,"  said  the  lawyer,  with  a 
humorous  sense  of  the  predicament  twinkling  in  his 
eyes.  "  And  that  will  leave  my  clients  just  nothing  in 
the  world  until  Mr.  Northwick  comes  home  with  that 


316  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

fortune  he  proposes  to  make.  In  the  meantime  they 
have  their  chance  of  starving  to  death,  or  living  on 
charity.  And  I  don't  believe,"  said  Putney,  breaking 
down  with  a  laugh,  "  they've  the  slightest  notion  of 
doing  either." 

Matt  stood  appalled  at  the  prospect  which  the  brute 
terms  brought  before  him.  He  realized  that  after  all 
there  is  no  misery  like  that  of  want,  and  that  yonder 
poor  girl  had  chosen  something  harder  to  bear  than 
her  father's  shame. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  they  mustn't  be  allowed  to 
suffer.  We  shall  count  upon  you  to  see  that  nothing 
of  that  kind  happens.  You  can  contrive  somehow  not 
to  let  them  know  that  they  are  destitute." 

"  Why,"  said  Putney,  putting  his  leg  over  the  back 
of  a  chair  into  its  seat,  for  his  greater  ease  in  conver 
sation,  "  I  could,  if  I  were  a  lawyer  in  a  novel.  But 
what  do  you  think  I  can  do  with  two  women  like 
these,  who  follow  me  up  every  inch  of  the  way,  and 
want  to  know  just  what  I  mean  by  every  step  I  take  ? 
You're  acquainted  with  Miss  Suzette,  1  suppose  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Matt,  consciously. 

"Well,  do  you  suppose  that  such  a  girl  as  that, 
when  she  had  made  up  her  mind  to  starve,  wouldn't 
know  what  you  were  up  to  if  you,  pretended  to  have 
found  a  lot  of  money  belonging  to  her  under  the  cup 
board  ?  " 

"The  company  must  do  something,'  said  Matt,  des 
perately.  "  They  have  no  claim  on  the  property,  none 
whatever !  " 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  317 

"  Now  you're  shouting."  Putney  put  a  comfortable 
mass  of  tobacco  in  his  mouth,  and  began  to  work  his 
jaws  vigorously  upon  it. 

"  They  mustn't  take  it  —  they  won't  take  it !  "  cried 
Matt. 

Putney  laughed  scornfully. 


XIII. 

MATT  made  his  way  home  to  his  farm,  by  a  tire 
some  series  of  circuitous  railroad  connections  across 
country.  He  told  his  mother  of  the  new  shape  the 
trouble  of  the  Northwicks  had  taken,  and  asked  her 
if  she  could  not  go  to  see  them,  and  find  out  some  way 
to  help  them. 

Louise  wished  to  go  instantly  to  see  them.  She 
cried  out  over  the  noble  action  that  Suzette  wished  to 
do ;  she  knew  it  was  all  Suzette. 

"  Yes,  it  is  noble,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary.  "  But  I 
almost  wish  she  wouldn't  do  it." 

"  Why,  mamma  ?  " 

"  It  complicates  matters.  They  could  have  gone  on 
living  there  very  well  as  they  were  ;  and  the  company 
doesn't  need  it ;  but  now  where  will  they  go  ?  What 
will  become  of  them  ?  " 

Louise  had  not  thought  of  that,  and  she  found  it 
shocking. 

"  I  suppose,"  Matt  said,  "  that  the  company  would 
let  them  stay  where  they  are,  for  the  present,  and  that 
they  won't  be  actually  houseless.  But  they  propose 
now  to  give  up  the  money  that  their  father  left  for 
their  support  till  he  could  carry  out  the  crazy  schemes 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  319 

for  retrieving  himself  that  he  speaks  of  in  his  letter ; 
and  then  they  will  have  nothing  to  live  on." 

"  I  knew  Suzette  would  do  that ! "  said  Louise. 
"  Before  that  letter  came  out  she  always  said  that  her 
father  never  did  what  the  papers  said.  But  that  cut 
the  ground  from  under  her  feet,  and  such  a  girl  could 
have  no  peace  till  she  had  given  up  everything  — 
everything ! '' 

"  Something  must  be  done,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary. 
"  Have  they  —  has  Suzette  —  any  plans  ?  " 

"  None,  but  that  of  giving  up  the  little  money  they 
have  left  in  the  bank,"  said  Matt,  forlornly. 

"  Well,"  Mrs.  Hilary  commented  with  a  sort  of 
magisterial  authority,  "  they've  all  managed  as  badly 
as  they  could." 

u  Well,  mother,  they  hadn't  a  very  hopeful  case,  to 
begin  with,"  said  Matt,  and  Louise  smiled. 

u  I  suppose  your  poor  father  is  worried  almost  to 
death  about  it,"  Mrs.  Hilary  pursued. 

"  He  was  annoyed,  but  I  couldn't  see  that  he  had 
lost  his  appetite.  I  don't  think  that  even  his  worri- 
ment  is  the  first  thing  to  be  considered,  though." 

"  No  •,  of  course  not,  Matt.  I  was  merely  trying  to 
think.  I  don't  know  just  what  we  can  offer  to  do; 
but  we  must  find  out.  Yes,  we  must  go  and  see  them. 
They  don't  seem  to  have  any  one  else.  It  is  very 
strange  that  they  should  have  no  relations  they  can  go 
to!"  Mrs.  Hilary  meditated  upon  a  hardship  which 
she  seemed  to  find  personal.  "Well,  we  must  try 
what  we  can  do,"  she  said  relentingly,  after  a  moment's 

pause. 

21 


320  THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY. 

They  talked  the  question  of  what  she  could  do 
futilely  over,  and  at  the  end  Mrs.  Hilary  said,  "I 
will  go  there  in  the  morning.  And  I  think  I  shall  go 
from  there  to  Boston,  and  try  to  get  your  father  off  to 
the  shore." 

"  Oh  !  "  said  Louise. 

"Yes;  I  don't  like  his  being  in  town  so  late." 

"  Poor  papa  !  Did  he  look  very  much  wasted  away, 
Matt  ?  Why  don't  you  get  him  to  come  up  here  ?  " 

"  He's  been  asked,"  said  Matt. 

"Yes,  I  know  he  hates  the  country,"  Louise  as 
sented.  She  rose  and  went  to  the  glass  door  standing 
open  on  the  piazza,  where  a  syringa  bush  was  filling 
the  dull,  warm  air  with  its  breath.  "  We  must  all  try 
to  think  what  we  can  do  for  Suzette." 

Her  mother  looked  at  the  doorway  after  she  had 
vanished  through  it;  and  listened  a  moment  to  her 
voice  in  talk  with  some  one  outside.  The  two  voices 
retreated  together,  and  Louise's  laugh  made  itself 
heard  farther  off.  "  She  is  a  light  nature,"  sighed 
Mrs.  Hilary. 

"Yes,"  Matt  admitted,  thinking  he  would  rather 
like  to  be  of  a  light  nature  himself  at  that  moment. 
"  But  I  don't  know  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in  it. 
It  would  do  no  good  if  she  took  the  matter  heavily." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  the  Northwicks  entirely,"  said 
Mrs.  Hilary.  "  But  she  is  so  in  regard  to  everything. 
I  know  she  is  a  good  child,  but  I'm  afraid  she  doesn't 
feel  things  deeply.  Matt,  I  don't  believe  I  like  this 
protege  of  yours." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  321 

"  Maxwell  ? " 

"  Yes.     He's  too  intense." 

"Aren't  you  a  little  difficult,  mother?"  Matt  asked. 
"  You  don't  like  Louise's  lightness,  and  you  don't  like 
Maxwell's  intensity.  I  think  he'll  get  over  that.  He's 
sick,  poor  fellow  ;  he  won't  be  so  intense  when  he  gets 
better." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  very  likely."  Mrs.  Hilary  paused,  and 
then  she  added,  abruptly,  "  I  hope  Louise's  sympathies 
will  be  concentrated  on  Sue  Northwick  for  a  while, 
now." 

"I  thought  they  were  that,  already,"  said  Matt. 
u  I'm  sure  Louise  has  shown  herself  anxious  to  be  her 
friend  ever  since  her  troubles  began.  I  hadn't  sup 
posed  she  was  so  attached  to  her  —  so  constant  —  " 

"  She's  romantic ;  but  she's  worldly  ;  she  likes  the 
world  and  its  ways.  There  never  was  a  girl  who 
liked  better  the  pleasure,  the  interest  of  the  moment. 
I  don't  say  she's  fickle  ;  but  one  thing  drives  another 
out  of  her  mind.  She  likes  to  live  in  a  dream;  she 
likes  to  make-believe.  Just  now  she's  all  taken  up 
with  an  idyllic  notion  of  country  life,  because  she's 
here  in  June,  with  that  sick  young  reporter  to  pat 
ronize.  But  she's  the  creature  of  her  surroundings, 
and  as  soon  as  she  gets  away  she'll  be  a  different 
person  altogether.  She's  a  strange  contradiction  !  " 
Mrs.  Hilary  sighed.  "  If  she  would  only  be  entirely 
worldly,  it  wouldn't  be  so  difficult ;  but  when  her  mix 
ture  of  unworldliness  comes  in,  it's  quite  distracting." 
She  waited  a  moment  as  if  to  let  Matt  ask  her  what 


322          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

she  meant ;  but  lie  did  not,  and  she  went  on  :  "  She's 
certainly  not  a  simple  character  —  like  Sue  North- 
wick,  for  instance." 

Matt  now  roused  himself,  "  Is  she  a  simple  charac 
ter  ?  "  he  asked,  with  a  show  of  indifference. 

"  Perfectly,"  said  his  mother.  "  She  always  acts 
from  pride.  That  explains  everything  she  does." 

"I  know  she  is  proud,"  Matt  admitted,  finding  a 
certain  comfort  in  openly  recognizing  traits  in  Sue 
Northwick  that  he  had  never  deceived  himself  about. 
He  had  a  feeling,  too,  that  he  was  behaving  with 
something  like  the  candor  due  his  mother,  in  saying, 
"  I  could  imagine  her  being  imperious,  even  arrogant 
at  times  ;  and  certainly  she  is  a  wilful  person.  But  I 
don't  see,"  he  added,  "  why  we  shouldn't  credit  her 
with  something  better  than  pride  in  what  she  proposes 
to  do  now." 

*'  She  has  behaved  very  well,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary, 
"  and  much  better  than  could  have  been  expected  of 
her  father's  daughter." 

Matt  felt  himself  getting  angry  at  this  scanty  jus 
tice,  but  he  tried  to  answer  calmly,  "  Surely,  mother, 
there  must  be  a  point  where  the  blame  of  the  innocent 
ends  !  I  should  be  very  sorry  if  you  went  to  Miss 
Northwick  with  the  idea  that  we  were  conferring  a 
favor  in  any  way.  It  seems  to  me  that  she  is  indirectly 
putting  us  under  an  obligation  which  we  shall  find  it 
difficult  to  discharge  with  delicacy." 

"Aren't  you  rather  fantastic,  Matt  ?  " 

"I'm  merely  trying  to  be  just.     The  company  has 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  323 

no  right  to  the  property  which  she  is  going  to  give 
up." 

"  We  are  not  the  company." 

"  Father  is  the  president." 

"  Well,  and  he  got  Mr.  Northwick  a  chance  to  save 
himself,  and  he  abused  it,  and  ran  away.  And  if  she 
is  not  responsible  for' her  father,  why  should  you  feel 
so  for  yours  ?  But  I  think  you  may  trust  me,  Matt, 
to  do  what  is  right  and  proper  —  even  what  is  deli 
cate —  with  Miss  Northwick." 

"  Oh,  yes  !  I  didn't  mean  that." 

"  You  said  something  like  it,  my  dear." 

"Then  I  beg  your  pardon,  mother.  I  certainly 
wasn't  thinking  of  her  alone.  But  she  is  proud,  and 
I  hoped  you  would  let  her  feel  that  we  realize  all  that 
she  is  doing." 

"  I'm  afraid,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  with  a  final  sigh, 
"that  if  I  were  quite  frank  with  her,  I  should  tell  her 
she  was  a  silly,  headstrong  girl,  and  I  wished  she 
wouldn't  do  it." 


XIV.     . 

THE  morning  which  followed  was  that  of  a  warm, 
lulling,  luxuriant  June  day,  whose  high  tides  of  life 
spread  to  everything.  Maxwell  felt  them  in  his  weak 
pulses  where  he  sat  writing  at  an  open  window  of  the 
farmhouse,  and  early  in  the  forenoon  he  came  out  on 
the  piazza  of  the  farmhouse,  with  a  cushion  clutched 
in  one  of  his  lean  hands ;  his  soft  hat-brim  was  pulled 
down  over  his  dull,  dreamy  eyes,  where  the  far-off  look 
of  his  thinking  still  lingered.  Louise  was  in  the  ham 
mock,  and  she  lifted  herself  alertly  out  of  it  at  sight 
of  him,  with  a  smile  for  his  absent  gaze. 

"  Have  you  got  through  ?  " 

"  I've  got  tired ;  or,  rather,  I've  got  bored.  I 
thought  I  would  go  up  to  the  camp." 

"  You're  not  going  to  lie  on  the  ground,  there  ?  " 
she  asked,  with  the  importance  and  authority  of  a 
woman  who  puts  herself  in  charge  of  a  sick  man,  as 
a  woman  always  must  when  there  is  such  a  man  near 
her. 

"  I  would  be  willing  to  be  under  it,  such  a  day  as 
this,"  he  said.  "  But  I'll  take  the  shawl,  if  that's 
what  you  mean.  I  thought  it  was  here  ?  " 

"  I'll  get  it  for  you,"  said  Louise ;  and  he  let  her 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  325 

go  into  the  parlor  and  bring  it  out  to  him.  She  laid 
it  in  a  narrow  fold  over  his  shoulder ;  he  thanked  her 
carelessly,  and  she  watched  him  sweep  languidly 
across  the  buttercupped  and  dandelioned  grass  of  the 
meadow-land  about  the  house,  to  the  dark  shelter  of 
the  pine  grove  at  the  north.  The  sun  struck  full 
upon  the  long  levels  of  the  boughs,  and  kindled  their 
needles  to  a  glistening  mass  ;  underneath,  the  ground 
was  red,  and  through  the  warm-looking  twilight  of  the 
sparse  wood  the  gray  canvas  of  a  tent  showed ;  Matt 
often  slept  there  in  the  summer,  and  so  the  place  was 
called  the  camp.  There  was  a  hammock  between  two 
of  the  trees,  just  beyond  the  low  stone  wall,  and 
Louise  saw  Maxwell  get  into  it. 

Matt  came  out  on  the  piazza  in  his  blue  woollen 
shirt  and  overalls  and  high  boots,  and  his  cork  helmet 
topping  all. 

"  You  look  like  a  cultivated  cowboy  that  had  gob 
bled  an  English  tourist,  Matt,"  said  his  sister.  "  Have 
you  got  anything  for  me  ?  " 

Matt  had  some  letters  in  his  hands  which  the  man 
had  just  brought  up  from  the  post-office.  "  No  ;  but 
there  are  two  for  Maxwell  —  " 

"  I  will  carry  them  to  him,  if  you're  busy.  He's 
just  gone  over  to  the  camp." 

"  Well,  do,"  said  Matt.  He  gave  them  to  her,  and 
he  asked,  "  How  do  you  think  he  is,  this  morning?  " 

"  He  must  be  pretty  well ;  he's  been  writing  ever 
since  breakfast." 

"  I  wish  he  hadn't,"  said  Matt.     "  He  ought  really 


326  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

to  be  got  away  somewhere  out  of  the  reach  of  news 
papers.  I'll  see.  Louise,  how  do  you  think  a  girl 
like  Sue  Northwick  would  feel  about  an  outright  offer 
of  help  at  such  a  time  as  this  ?  " 

"  How,  help  ?  It's  very  difficult  to  help  people," 
said  Louise,  wisely.  "  Especially  when  they're  not 
able  to  help  themselves.  Poor  Sue !  I  don't  know 
what  she  will  do.  If  Jack  Wilmington — but  he 
never  really  cared  for  her,  and  now  I  don't  believe 
she  cares  for  him.  No,  it  couldn't  be." 

"  No ;  the  idea  of  love  would  be  sickening  to  her 
now." 

Louise  opened  her  eyes.  "Why,  I  don't  know 
what  you  mean,  Matt.  If  she  still  cared  for  him,  I 
can't  imagine  any  time  when  she  would  rather  know 
that  he  cared  for  her." 

"  But  her  pride  —  wouldn't  she  feel  that  she  couldn't; 
meet  him  on  equal  terms  • —  " 

"  Oh,  pride  !  Stuff !  Do  you  suppose  that  a  girl 
who  really  cared  for  a  person  would  think  of  the  terms 
she  met  them  on  ?  When  it  comes  to  such  a  thing  as 
that  there  is  no  pride  ;  and  proud  girls  and  meek  girls 
are  just  alike  —  like  cats  in  the  dark." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  asked  Matt ;  the  sunny  glisten, 
which  had  been  wanting  to  them  before,  came  into  his 
eyes. 

"I  know  so,"  said  Louise.  "Why,  do  you  think 
that  Jack  Wilmington  still  —  " 

"  No  ;  no.  I  was  just  wondering.  I  think  I  shall 
run  down  to  Boston  to-morrow,  and  see  father —  Or, 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          327 

no!  Mother  won't  be  back  till  to-morrow  evening. 
"Well,  I  will  talk  with  you,  at  dinner,  about  it." 

Matt  went  off  to  his  mowing,  and  Louise  heard  the 
cackle  of  his  machine  before  she  reached  the  camp 
with  Maxwell's  letters. 

"  Don't  get  up  !  "  she  called  to  him,  when  he  lifted 
himself  with  one  arm  at  the  stir  of  her  gown  over 
the  pine-needles.  "  Merely  two  letters  that  I  thought 
perhaps  you  might  want  to  see  at  once.'' 

He  took  them,  and  glancing  at  one  of  them  threw 
it  out  on  the  ground.  "  This  is  from  Ricker,"  he 
he  said,  opening  the  other.  "  If  you'll  excuse  me," 
and  he  began  to  read  it.  "  "Well,  that  is  all  right," 
he  said,  when  he  had  run  it  through.  "  He  can  man 
age  without  me  a  little  while  longer ;  but  a  few  more 
days  like  this  will  put  an  end  to  my  loafing.  I  begiu 
to  feel  like  work,  for  the  first  time  since  I  cam«i  up 
here." 

"  The  good  air  is  beginning  to  tell,"  said  Louise, 

sittin^  down  on  the  board  which  formed  a  bench  be 
es 

tween  two  of  the  trees  fronting  the  hammock.  "  But 
if  you  hurry  back  to  town,  now,  you  will  spoil  every 
thing.  You  must  stay  the  whole  summer  " 

"  You  rich  people  are  amusing,"  said  Maxwell, 
turning  himself  on  his  side,  and  facing  her.  "You 
think  poor  people  can  do  what  they  like." 

"  I  think  they  can  do  what  other  people  like,"  said 
the  girl,  "  if  they  will  try.  What  is  to  prevent  your 
staying  here  till  you  get  perfectly  well  ?  " 

"  The  uncertainty  whether  I  shall  ever  get  perfectly 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

well,  for  one  thing,"  said  Maxwell,  watching  with 
curious  interest  the  play  of  the  light  and  shade  flecks 
on  her  face  and  figure. 

"  I  know  you  will  get  well,  if  you  stay,"  she  inter 
rupted. 

"And  for  another  thing,"  he  went  on,  "the  high 
and  holy  duty  we  poor  people  feel  not  to  stop  working 
for  a  living  as  long  as  we  live.  It's  a  caste  pride. 
Poverty  obliges,  as  well  as  nobility." 

"  Oh,  pshaw  !  Pride  obliges,  too.  It's  your  wicked 
pride.  You're  worse  than  rich  people,  as  you  call  us : 
a  great  deal  prouder.  Rich  people  will  let  you  help 
them." 

"  So  would  poor  people,  if  they  didn't  need  help. 
You  can  take  a  gift  if  you  don't  need  it.  You  can 
accept  an  invitation  to  dinner,  if  you're  surfeited  to 
loathing,  but  you  can't  let  any  one  give  you  a  meal  if 
you're  hungry.  You  rich  people  are  like  children, 
compared  with  us  poor  folks.  You  don't  know  life; 
you  don't  know  the  world.  I  should  like  to  do  a  girl 
brought  up  like  you  in  the  ignorance  and  helplessness 
of  riches." 

"  You  would  make  me  hateful." 

"  I  would  make  you  charming." 

"  Well,  do  me,  then !  " 

"Ah,  you  wouldn't  like  it." 

"Why?" 

"  Because  —  I  found  it  out  in  my  newspaper  work, 
when  I  had  to  interview  people  and  write  them  up  — 
people  don't  like  to  have  the  good  points  they  have, 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY.  329 

recognized;  they  want  you  to  celebrate  the  good 
points  they  haven't  got.  If  a  man  is  amiable  and  kind 
and  has  something  about  him  that  wins  everybody's 
heart,  he  wants  to  be  portrayed  as  a  very  dignified  and 
commanding  character,  full  of  inflexible  purpose  and 
indomitable  will." 

".I  don't  see,"  said  Louise,  "why  you  think  I'm 
weak,  and  low-minded,  and  undignified." 

Maxwell  laughed.  "  Did  I  say  something  of  that 
kind?" 

"  You  meant  it." 

"  If  ever  I  have  to  interview  you,  I  shall  say  that 
under  a  mask  of  apparent  incoherency  and  irrelevance, 
Miss  Hilary  conceals  a  profound  knowledge  of  human 
nature  and  a  gift  of  divination  which  explores  the 
most  unconscious  opinions  and  motives  of  her  inter 
locutor.  How  would  you  like  that  ?  " 

"  Pretty  well,  because  I  think  it's  true.  But  I 
shouldn't  like  to  be  interviewed." 

"Well,  you're  safe  from  me.  My  interviewing 
days  are  over.  I  believe  if  I  keep  on  getting  better 
at  the  rate  I've  been  going  the  last  week,  I  shall  be 
f  able  to  write  a  play  this  summer,  besides  doing  my 
work  for  the  Abstract.  If  I  could  do  that,  and  it 
succeeded,  the  riddle  would  be  read  for  me." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  I  should  have  a  handsome  income, 
and  could  give  up  newspaper  work  altogether." 

"  Could  you  ?  How  glorious  !  "  said  Louise,  with 
the  sort  of  maternal  sympathy  she  permitted  herself 


330  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

to  feel  for  the  sick  youth.     "  Plow  much  would  you 
get  for  your  play  ?  " 

"  If  it  was  only  reasonably  successful,  it  would  be 
worth  five  or  six  thousand  dollars  a  year." 

"  And  is  that  a  handsome  income  ?  "  she  asked,  with 
mounting  earnestness. 

He  pulled  himself  up  in  the  hammock  to  get  her 
face  fully  in  view,  and  asked,  "  How  much  do  you 
think  I've  been  able  to  average  up  to  this  time  ?  " 

"I  don't  know.  I'm  afraid  I  don't  know  at  all 
about  such  things.  But  I  should  like  to." 

Maxwell  let  himself  drop  back  into  the  hammock. 
"  I  think  I  won't  humiliate  myself  by  giving  the  fig 
ures.  I'd  better  leave  it  to  your  imagination.  You'll 
be  sure  to  make  it  enough." 

"  Why  should  you  be  ashamed  of  it,  if  it's  ever  so 
little  ?  "  she  asked.  "  But  /  know.  It's  your  pride. 
It's  like  Sue  Northwick  wanting  to  give  up  all  her 
property  because  her  father  wrote  that  letter,  and  said 
he  had  used  the  company's  money.  And  Matt  says  it 
isn't  his  property  at  all,  and  the  company  has  no 
right  to  it.  If  she  gives  it  up,  she  and  her  sister  will 
have  nothing  to  live  on.  And  they  won't  let  them 
selves  be  helped  —  any  more  than  —  than  —  you 
will ! " 

"  No.  We  began  with  that ;  people  who  need  help 
can't  let  you  help  them.  Don't  they  know  where 
their  father  is  ?  " 

"  No.     But  of  course  they  must,  now,  before  long." 

Maxwell  said,  after  the  silence  that  followed  upon 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          331 

this.     "  I  should  like  to  have  a  peep  into  that  man's 
soul." 

"  Horrors  !  Why  should  you?  "  asked  Louise. 

"  It  would  be  such  splendid  material.  If  he  is  fond 
of  his  children  —  " 

"  He  and  Sue  dote  upon  each  other.  I  don't  see 
how  she  can  endure  him;  lie  always  made  me  feel 
creepy." 

"  Then  he  must  have  written  that  letter  to  conciliate 
public  feeling,  and  to  make  his  children  easier  about 
him  and  his  future.  And  now  if  you  could  see  him 
when  he  realizes  that  he's  only  brought  more  shame 
on  them,  and  forced  them  to  beggar  themselves  — 
it  would  be  a  tremendous  situation." 

"But  I  shouldn't  like  to  see  him  at  such  a  time. 
It  seems  to  me,  that's  worse  than  interviewing,  Mr. 
Maxwell." 

There  was  a  sort  of  recoil  from  him  in  her  tone, 
which  perhaps  he  felt.  It  seemed  to  interest,  rather 
than  offend  him.  "  You  don't  get  the  artistic  point  of 
view." 

"  I  don't  want  to  get  it,  if  that's  it.  And  if  your 
play  is  going  to  be  about  any  such  thing  as  that  —  " 

"  It  isn't,"  said  Maxwell.  "  I  failed  on  that.  I 
shall  try  a  comic  motive," 

"  Oh!  "said  Louise,  in  the  concessive  tone  people 
use,  when  they  do  not  know  but  they  have  wronged 
some  one.  She  spiritually  came  back  to  him,  but 
materially  she  rose  to  go  away  and  leave  him. 
She  stooped  for  the  letter  he  had  dropped  out  of 


332  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

the  hammock   and  gave  it  him.     "  Don't  you  want 
this  ?  " 

"  Oh,  thank  you  !  I'd  forgotten  it."  He  glanced  at 
the  superscription,  "  It's  from  Pinney.  You  ought  to 
know  Pinney,  Miss  Hilary,  if  you  want  the  true  artis 
tic  point  of  view." 

"  Is  he  a  literary  man  ?  " 

"  Pinney  ?  Did  you  read  the  account  of  the  defal 
cation  in  the  Events  —  when  it  first  came  out?  All 
illustrations  ?  " 

"  That  ?  I  don't  wonder  you  didn't  care  to  read  his 
letter !  Or  perhaps  he's  your  friend  —  " 

"  Pinney's  everybody's  friend,"  said  Maxwell,  with 
an  odd  sort  of  relish.  "  He's  delightful.  I  should  like 
to  do  Pinney.  He's  a  type."  Louise  stood  frowning 
at  the  mere  notion  of  Pinney.  u  He's  not  a  bad  fel 
low,  Miss  Hilary,  though  he  is  a  remorseless  inter 
viewer.  He  would  be  very  good  material.  He  is  a 
mixture  of  motives,  like  everybody  else,  but  he  has 
only  one  ambition :  he  wants  to  be  the  greatest  news 
paper  man  of  his  generation.  The  ladies  nearly 
always  like  him.  He  never  lets  five  minutes  pass 
without  speaking  of  his  wife  ;  he's  so  proud  of  her  he 
can't  keep  still." 

"  I  should  think  she  would  detest  him." 

"  She  doesn't.  She's  quite  as  proud  of  him  as  he  is 
of  her.  It's  affecting  to  witness  their  devotion  —  or 
it  would  be  if  it  were  not  such  a  bore." 

"  I  can't  understand  you,"  said  Louise,  leaving  him 
to  his  letter. 


XV. 

PART  of  Matt  Hilary's  protest  against  the  status  in 
which  he  found  himself  a  swell  was  to  wash  his  face 
for  dinner  in  a  tin  basin  on  the  back  porch,  like  the 
farm-hands.  When  he  was  alone  at  the  farm  he  had 
the  hands  eat  with  him ;  when  his  mother  and  sister 
were  visiting  him  he  pretended  that  the  table  was  too 
small  for  them  all  at  dinner  and  tea,  though  he  con 
tinued  to  breakfast  with  the  hands,  because  the  ladies 
were  never  up  at  his  hour;  the  hands  knew  well 
enough  what  it  meant,  but  they  liked  Matt. 

Louise  found  him  at  the  roller-towel,  after  his  em 
blematic  ablutions.  u  Oh,  is  it  so  near  dinner  ?  "  she 
asked. 

"  Yes.     Where  is  Maxwell  ?  " 

"  I  left  him  up  at  the  camp."  She  walked  a  little 
way  out  into  the  ground-ivy  that  matted  the  back-yard 
under  the  scattering  spruce  trees. 

Matt  followed,  and"  watched  the  homing  and  depart 
ing  bees  around  the  hives  in  the  deep,  red-clovered 
grass  near  the  wall. 

"  Those  fellows  will  be  swarming  before  long,"  he 
said,  with  a  measure  of  the  good  comradeship  he  felt 
for  all  living  things. 

"  I  don't  see,"  said  Louise,  plucking  a  tender,  green 


334  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

shoot  from  one  of  the  fir  boughs  overhead,  "  why  Mr. 
Maxwell  is  so  hard." 

"Is  he  hard?"  asked  Matt.  "Well,  perhaps  he 
is." 

"  He  is  very  sneering  and  bitter,"  said  the  girl.  "  I 
don't  like  it." 

"  Ah,  he's  to  blame  for  that,"  Matt  said.  "  But  as 
for  his  hardness,  that  probably  comes  from  his  having 
had  to  make  such  a  hard  fight  for  what  he  wants  to 
be  in  life.  That  hardens  people,  and  brutalizes  them, 
but  somehow  we  mostly  admire  them  and  applaud 
them  for  their  success  against  odds.  If  we  had  a 
true  civilization  a  man  wouldn't  have  to  fight  for  the 
chance  to  do  the  thing  he  is  fittest  for,  that  is,  to  be 
himself.  But  I'm  glad  you  don't  like  Maxwell's  hard 
ness  ;  I  don't  myself." 

"  He  seems  to  look  upon  the  whole  world  as  mate 
rial,  as  he  calls  it ;  he  doesn't  seem  to  regard  people 
as  fellow  beings,  as  you  do,  Matt,  or  even  as  servants 
or  inferiors ;  he  hasn't  so  much  kindness  for  them  as 
that." 

"Well,  that's  the  odious  side  of  the  artistic  nature," 
said  Matt,  smiling  tolerantly.  "  But  he'll  probably 
get  over  that ;  he's  very  young ;  he  thinks  he  has  to 
be  relentlessly  literary  now." 

"  He's  older  than  I  am  !  "  said  Louise. 

"  He  hasn't  seen  so  much  of  the  world." 

"  He  thinks  he's  seen  a  great  deal  more.  I  don't 
think  he's  half  so  nice  as  we  supposed.  I  should  call 
him  dangerous." 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.          335 

"  Oil,  I  shouldn't  say  that,  exactly,"  Matt  returned. 
"  But  he  certainly  hasn't  our  traditions.  I'll  just  step 
over  and  call  him  to  dinner." 

-u  Oh,  no  !  Let  me  try  if  I  can  blow  the  horn."  She 
ran  to  where  the  long  tin  tube  hung  on  the  porch,  and 
coming  out  with  it  again,  set  it  to  her  lips  and  evoked 
some  stertorous  and  crumby  notes  from  it.  "  Do  you 
suppose  he  saw  me  ?  "  she  asked,  running  back  with 
the  horn. 

Matt  could  not  say  ;  but  Maxwell  had  seen  her,  and 
had  thought  of  a  poem  which  he  imagined  illustrated 
with  the  figure  of  a  tall,  beautiful  girl  lifting  a  long 
tin  horn  to  her  lips  with  outstretched  arms.  He  did 
not  know  whether  to  name  it  simply  The  Dinner 
Horn,  or  grotesquely,  Hebe  Calling  the  Gods  to 
Nectar.  He  debated  the  question  as  he  came  lagging 
over  the  grass  with  his  cushion  in  one  hand  and  Pin- 
ney's  letter,  still  opened,  in  the  other.  He  said  to 
Matt,  who  came  out  to  get  the  cushion  of  him, 
"Here's  something  I'd  like  to  talk  over  with  you, 
when  you've  the  time." 

"  Well,  after  dinner,"  said  Matt. 

Pinney's  letter  was  a  long  one,  written  in  pencil  on 
one  side  of  long  slips  of  paper,  like  printer's  copy; 
the  slips  were  each  carefully  folioed  in  the  upper 
right  hand  corner ;  but  the  language  was  the  language 
of  Pinney's  life,  and  not  the  decorative  diction  which 
he  usually  addressed  to  the  public  on  such  slips  of 
paper. 

"  I  guess,"  it  began,  "I've  got  onto  the  biggest  thing 
22 


336  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

yet,  Maxwell.  The  Events  is  going  to  send,  me  to  do 
the  Social  Science  Congress  which  meets  in  Quebec 
this  year,  and  I'm  going  to  take  Mrs.  Pinney  along 
and  have  a  good  time.  She's  got  so  she  can  travel 
first-rate,  now;  and  the  change  will  do  her  and  the 
baby  both  good.  I  shall  interview  the  social  science 
wiseacres,  and  do  their  proceedings,  of  course,  but  the 
thing  that  I'm  onto  is  North  wick.  I've  always  felt 
that  Northwick  kind  of  belonged  to  yours  truly,  any 
way  ;  I  was  the  only  man  that  \vorked  him  up  in  any 
sort  of  shape,  at  the  time  the  defalcation  came  out, 
and  I've  got  a  little  idea  that  I  think  will  simply  clean 
out  all  competition.  That  letter  of  his  set  me  to 
thinking,  as  soon  as  I  read  it,  and  my  wife  and  I  both 
happened  on  the  idea  at  the  same  time  ;  clear  case  of 
telepathy.  Our  idea  is  that  Northwick  didn't  go  to 
Europe  —  of  course  he  didn't!  — but  he's  just  holding 
out  for  terms  with  the  company.  I  don't  believe  he's 
got  off  with  much  money ;  but  if  he  was  going  into 
business  with  it  in  Canada,  he  would  have  laid  low  till 
he'd  made  his  investments.  So  my  theory  is  that  he's 
got  all  the  money  he  took  with  him  except  his  living 
expenses.  I  believe  I  can  find  Northwick,  and  I  am 
not  going  to  come  home  without  trying  hard.  I  am 
going  to  have  a  detective's  legal  outfit,  and  I  natter 
myself  I  can  get  Northwick  over  the  frontier  some 
how,  and  restore  him  to  the  arms  of  his  anxious  friends 
of  the  Ponkwasset  Company.  I  don't  know  yet  just 
how  I  shall  do  it,  but  I  guess  I  shall  do  it.  I  shall 
have  Mrs.  Pinney's  advice  and  counsel,  and  she's  a 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  337 

team ;  but  I  shall  have  to  leave  her  and  the  baby  at 
Quebec,  while  I'm  roaming  round  in  Rimouski  and 
the  wilderness  generally,  and  I  shall  need  active  help. 

"  Now,  I  liked  some  things  in  that  Abstract  article 
of  yours ;  it  was  snappy  and  literary,  and  all  that,  and 
it  showed  grasp  of  the  subject.  It  showed  a  humane 
and  merciful  spirit  toward  our  honored  friend  that 
could  be  made  to  tell  in  my  little  game  if  I  could  get 
the  use  of  it.  So  I've  concluded  to  let  you  in  on  the 
ground  floor,  if  you  want  to  go  into  the  enterprise  with 
me ;  if  you  don't,  don't  give  it  away  ;  that's  all.  My 
idea  is  that  Northwick  can  be  got  at  quicker  by  two 
than  by  one ;  but  we  have  not  only  got  to  get  at  him, 
but  we  have  got  to  get  him  ;  and  get  him  on  this  side 
of  Jordan.  I  guess  we  shall  have  to  do  that  by  moral 
suasion  mostly,  and  that's  where  your  massive  and 
penetrating  intellect  will  be  right  on  deck.  You  won't 
have  to  play  a  part,  either ;  if  you  believe  that  his 
only  chance  of  happiness  on  earth  is  to  come  home 
and  spend  the  rest  of  his  life  in  State's  prison,  you  can 
conscientiously  work  him  from  that  point  of  view. 
Seriously,  Maxwell,  I  think  this  is  a  great  chance.  If 
there's  any  of  that  money  he  speaks  of  we  shall  have 
our  pickings :  and  then  as  a  mere  scoop,  if  we  get  at 
Northwick  at  all,  whether  we  can  coax  him  over  the 
line  or  not,  we  will  knock  out  the  fellow  that  fired 
the  Ephesian  dome  so  that  he'll  never  come  to  time  in 
all  eternity. 

"  I  mean  business,  Maxwell ;  I  haven't  mentioned 
this  to  anybody  but  my  wife,  yet ;  and  if  you  don't  go 


338  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

in  with  me,  nobody  shall.  /  want  you,  old  boy,  and 
I'm  willing  to  pay  for  you.  If  this  thing  goes  through, 
I  shall  be  in  a  position  to  name  my  own  place  and 
price  on  the  Events.  I  expect  to  be  managing  editor 
before  the  year's  out,  and  then  I  shall  secure  the  best 
talent  as  leading  writer,  which  his  name  is  Brice  E. 
Maxwell,  and  don't  you  forget  it. 

"Now,  you  think  it  over,  Maxwell.  There's  no 
hurry.  Take  time.  We've  got  to  wait  till  the  Soc. 
Sci.  Congress  meets,  anyway,  and  we've  got  to  let 
the  professional  pursuit  die  out.  This  letter  of  North- 
wick's  will  set  a  lot  of  detectives  after  him,  and  if  they 
can't  find  him,  or  can't  work  him  after  they've  found 
him,  they'll  get  tired,  and  give  him  up  for  a  bad  job. 
Then  will  be  the  time  for  the  gifted  amateur  to  step 
in  and  show  what  a  free  and  untrammelled  press  can 
do  to  punish  vice  and  reward  virtue." 


XVI. 

MAXWELL  explained  to  Matt,  as  lie  had  explained 
to  Louise,  that  Pinney  was  the  reporter  who  had 
written  up  the  Northwick  case  for  The  Events.  He 
said,  after  Matt  had  finished  reading  the  letter,  "  I 
thought  you  would  like  to  know  about  this.  I  don't 
regard  Pinney's  claim  on  my  silence  where  you're 
concerned;  in  fact,  I  don't  feel  bound  to  him,  any 
way." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Matt.  "Then  I  suppose  his 
proposal  doesn't  tempt  you?" 

"Why,  yes  it  does.  But  not  as  he  imagines.  I 
should  like  such  an  adventure  well  enough,  because  it 
would  give  me  a  glimpse  of  life  and  character  that  I 
should  like  to  know  something  about.  But  the  re 
porter  business  and  the  detective  business  wouldn't 
attract  me." 

"No,  I  should  suppose  not,"  said  Matt.  "What 
sort  of  fellow,  personally,  is  this  —  Pinney  ?  " 

"  Oh,  he  isn't  bad.  He  is  a  regular  type,"  said 
Maxwell,  with  tacit  enjoyment  of  the  typicality  of 
Pinney.  "  He  hasn't  the  least  chance  in  the  world  of 
working  up  into  any  controlling  place  in  the  paper. 
They  don't  know  much  in  the  Events  office  ;  but  they 
do  know  Pinney.  He's  a  great  liar  and  a  braggart, 


340  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

and  lie  has  no  more  notion  of  the  immunities  of  private 
life  than  —  Well,  perhaps  it's  because  he  would  as 
soon  turn  his  life  inside  out  as  not,  and  in  fact  would 
rather.  But  he's  very  domestic,  and  very  kind-hearted 
to  his  wife ;  it  seems  they  have  a  baby  now,  and  I've 
no  doubt  Pinney  is  a  pattern  to  parents.  He's  always 
advising  you  to  get  married  ;  but  he's  a  born  Bohe 
mian.  He's  the  most  harmless  creature  in  the  world, 
so  far  as  intentions  go,  and  quite  soft-hearted,  but  he 
wouldn't  spare  his  dearest  friend  if  he  could  make 
copy  of  him ;  it  would  be  impossible.  I  should  say 
he  was  first  a  newspaper  man,  and  then  a  man.  He's 
an  awfully  common  nature,  and  hasn't  the  first  literary 
instinct.  If  I  had  any  mystery,  or  mere  privacy  that 
I  wanted  to  guard,  and  I  thought  Pinney  was  on  the 
scent  of  it,  I  shouldn't  have  any  more  scruple  in  set 
ting  my  foot  on  him  than  I  would  on  that  snake." 

A  little  reptile,  allured  by  their  immobility,  had 
crept  out  of  the  stone  wall  which  they  were  standing 
near,  and  lay  flashing  its  keen  eyes  at  them,  and  run 
ning  out  its  tongue,  a  forked  thread  of  tremulous  scar 
let.  Maxwell  brought  his  heel  down  upon  its  head  as 
he  spoke,  and  ground  it  into  the  earth. 

Matt  winced  at  the  anguish  of  the  twisting  and 
writhing  thing.  "Ah,  I  don't  think  I  should  have 
killed  it !  " 

"  I  should,"  said  Maxwell. 

"Then  you  think  one  couldn't  trust  him?" 

"  Yes.  If  you  put  your  foot  on  him  in  some  sort  of 
agreement,  and  kept  it  there.  Why,  of  course  !  Any 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  341 

man  can  be  held.  But  don't  let  Pinney  have  room  to 
wriggle." 

They  turned,  and  walked  away,  Matt  keeping  the 
image  of  the  tormented  snake  in  his  mind ;  it  some 
how  mixed  there  with  the  idea  of  Pinney,  and  uncon 
sciously  softened  him  toward  the  reporter. 

"Would  there  be  any  harm,"  he  asked,  after  a 
while,  "  in  my  acting  on  a  knowledge  of  this  letter  in 
behalf  of  Mr.  Northwick's  family  ?  " 

"  Not  a  bit,"  said  Maxwell.  "  I  make  you  perfectly 
free  of  it,  as  far  as  I'm  concerned ;  and  it  can't  hurt 
Pinney,  even  if  he  ought  to  be  spared.  He  wouldn't 
spare  you." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Matt,  "that  I  could  justify 
myself  in  hurting  him  on  that  ground.  I  shall  be 
careful  about  him.  I  don't  at  all  know  that  I  shall 
want  to  use  it;  but  it  has  just  struck  me  that  per 
haps  —  But  I  don't  know !  I  should  have  to  talk 
with  their  attorney —  I  will  see  about  it!  And  I 
thank  you  very  much,  Mr.  Maxwell." 

"  Look  here,  Mr.  Hilary  !  "  said  Maxwell.  "  Use 
Pinney  all  yon  please,  and  all  you  can ;  but  I  warn 
you  he  is  a  dangerous  tool.  He  doesn't  mean  any 
harm  till  he's  tempted,  and  when  it's  done  he  doesn't 
think  it's  any  harm.  He  isn't  to  be  trusted  an  instant 
beyond  his  self-interest  ;  and  yet  he  has  flashes  of  un 
selfishness  that  would  deceive  the  very  elect.  Good 
heavens!"  cried  Maxwell,  "if  I  could  get  such  a 
character  as  Pinney's  into  a  story  or  a  play,  I  wouldn't 
take  odds  from  any  man  living !  " 


342 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 


His  notion,  whatever  it  was,  grew  upon  Matt,  so 
that  he  waited   more   and   more  impatiently  for  his 
mother's  return,  in  order  to  act  upon  it.     When  she 
did  get  back  to  the  farm  she  could  only  report  from 
the  Northwicks  that  she  had  said  pretty  much  what 
she  thought  she  would  like  to  say  to  Suzette  concern 
ing  her  wilfulness  and  obstinacy  in  wishing  to  give  up 
her  property  ;  but  Matt  inferred  that  she  had  at  the 
same  time  been  able  to  infuse  so  much  motherly  com 
fort  into  her  scolding  that  it  had  left  the  girl  consoled 
and  encouraged.     She  had  found  out   from   Adeline 
that  their  great  distress  was  not  knowing  yet  where 
their  father   was.      Apparently  he   thought  that   his 
published  letter  was  sufficient  reassurance  for  the  time 
being.     Perhaps  he  did  not  wish  them  to  get  at  him 
in  any  way,  or  to  have  his  purposes  affected  by  any 
appeal    from  them.     Perhaps,  as  Adeline  firmly  be 
lieved,  his  mind  had  been  warped  by  his  suffering 

he  must  have  suffered  greatly  —  and  he  was  not  able 
to  reason  quite  sanely  about  the  situation.  Mrs.  Hil 
ary  spoke  of  the  dignity  and  strength  which  both  the 
sisters  showed  in  their  trial  and  present  stress.  She 
praised  Suzette,  especially;  she  said  her  trouble 
seemed  to  have  softened  and  chastened  her ;  she  was 
really  a  noble  girl,  and  she  had  sent  her  love  to 
Louise ;  they  had  both  wished  to  be  remembered  to 
every  one.  "Adeline,  especially,  wished  to  be  re 
membered  to  you,  Matt ;  she  said  they  should  never 
forget  your  kindness." 

Matt  got  over  to  Ilatboro'  the    next  day,  and  went 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  343 

to  see  Putney,  who  received  him  with  some  ironical 
politeness,  when  Matt  said  he  had  come  hoping  to  be 
useful  to  his  clients,  the  Miss  Northwicks. 

"Well,  we  all  hope  something  of  that  kind,  Mr. 
Hilary.  You  were  here  on  a  mission  of  that  kind  be 
fore.  But  may  I  ask  why  you  think  I  should  believe 
you  wish  to  be  useful  to  them  ?  " 

"  Why  ?  " 

"  Yes.  Your  father  is  the  president  of  the  company 
Mr.  Northwick  had  his  little  embarrassment  with,  and 
the  natural  presumption  would  be  that  you  could  not 
really  be  friendly  toward  his  family." 

"  But  we  are  friendly !  All  of  us  !  My  father  would 
do  them  any  service  in  his  power,  consistent  with  his 
duty  to  —  to  —  his  business  associates." 

"  Ah,  that's  just  the  point.  And  you  would  all  do 
anything  you  could  for  them,  consistent  with  your 
duty  to  him.  That's  perfectly  right  —  perfectly  natu 
ral.  But  you  must  see  that  it  doesn't  form  a  ground 
of  common  interest  for  us.  I  talked  with  you  about 
the  Miss  Northwicks'  affairs  the  other  day  —  too  much, 
I  think.  But  I  can't  to-day.  I  shall  be  glad  to  con 
verse  with  you  on  any  other  topic — discuss  the  ways 
of  God  to  man,  or  any  little  interest  of  that  kind. 
But  unless  I  can  see  my  way  clearer  to  confidence 
between  us  in  regard  to  my  clients'  affairs  than  I  do 
at  present,  I  must  avoid  them." 

It  was  absurd ;  but  in  his  high  good-will  toward 
Adeline,  and  in  his  latent  tenderness  for  Suzette, 
Matt  was  hurt  by  the  lawyer's  distrust,  somewhat  as 


344  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

you  are  hurt  when  the  cashier  of  a  strange  bank  turns 
over  your  check  and  says  you  must  bring  some  one  to 
recognize  you.  It  cost  Matt  a  pang;  it  took  him  a 
moment  to  own  that  Putney  was  right.  Then  he 
said,  "  Of  course,  I  must  offer  you  proof  somehow 
that  I've  come  to  you  in  good  faith.  I  don't  know  ex 
actly  how  I  shall  be  able  to  do  it.  Would  the  assur 
ance  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Wade,  the  rector  of  St. 
Michael's  —  " 

The  name  seemed  to  affect  Putney  pleasantly ;  he 
smiled,  and  then  he  said,  "  Brother  Wade  is  a  good 
man,  and  his  words  usually  carry  conviction,  but  this 
is  a  serious  subject,  Mr.  Hilary."  He  laughed,  and 
concluded  earnestly,  "You  must  know  that  I  can't 
talk  with  you  on  any  such  authority.  I  couldn't  talk 
with  Mr.  Wade  himself." 

"  No,  no ;  of  course  not,"  Matt  assented ;  and  he 
took  himself  off  crestfallen,  ashamed  of  his  own  short 
sightedness. 

There  was  only  one  way  out  of  the  trouble,  and 
now  he  blamed  himself  for  not  having  tried  to  take 
that  way  at  the  outset.  He  had  justified  himself  in 
shrinking  from  it  by  many  plausible  excuses,  but  he 
could  justify  himself  no  longer.  He  rejoiced  in  feel 
ing  compelled,  as  it  were,  to  take  it.  At  least,  now, 
he  should  not  be  acting  from  any  selfish  impulse,  and 
if  there  were  anything  unseemly  in  what  he  was  going 
to  do,  he  should  have  no  regrets  on  that  score,  even  in 
the  shame  of  failure. 


XVII. 

MATT  HILARY  gave  himself  time,  on  his  way  to  the 
Northwiok  place,  or  at  least  as  much  time  as  would 
pass  between  walking  and  driving,  but  that  was  be 
cause  he  was  impatient,  and  his  own  going  seemed 
faster  to  his  nerves  than  that  of  the  swiftest  horse 
could  have  seemed.  At  the  crest  of  the  upland 
which  divides  Hatboro*  from  South  Hatboro',  and 
just  beyond  the  avenue  leading  to  Dr.  Morrell's 
house,  he  met  Sue  Northwick  ;  she  was  walking 
quickly,  too.  She  was  in  mourning,  but  she  had  put 
aside  her  long,  crape  veil,  and  she  came  towards  him 
with  her  proud  face  framed  in  the  black,  and  looking 
the  paler  for  it ;  a  little  of  her  yellow  hair  showed 
under  her  bonnet.  She  moved  imperiously,  and  Matt 
was  afraid  to  think  what  he  was  thinking  at  sight  of 
her.  She  seemed  not  to  know  him  at  first,  or  rather 
not  to  realize  that  it  was  he ;  when  she  did,  a  joyful 
light,  which  she  did  not  try  to  hide  from  him,  flashed 
over  her  visage  ;  and  "  Mr.  Hilary  !  "  she  said  as 
simply  and  hospitably  as  if  their  last  parting  had  not 
been  on  terms  of  enmity  that  nothing  could  clear  up 
or  explain  away. 

He  ran  forward  and  caught    her  hand.      u  Oh,   I 


346  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

am  so  glad,"  he  said.  "I  was  going  out  to  see  you 
about  something  —  very  important ;  and  I  might  have 
missed  you." 

"  No.  I  was  just  coming  to  the  doctor's,  and  then 
I  was  going  back.  My  sister  isn't  at  all  well,  and  I 
thought  she'd  better  see  the  doctor." 

"  It's  nothing  serious,  I  hope  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no.     I  think  she's  a  little  worn  out." 

"  I  know  !  "  said  Matt,  with  intelligence,  and  noth 
ing  more  was  said  between  them  as  to  the  cause  or 
nature  of  Adeline's  sickness.  Matt  asked  if  he  might 
go  up  the  doctor's  avenue  with  her,  and  they  walked 
along  together  under  the  mingling  elm  and  maple 
tops,  but  he  deferred  the  matter  he  wished  to  speak 
of.  They  found  a  little  girl  playing  in  the  road  near 
the  house,  and  Sue  asked,  "Is  your  father  at  home, 
Idella?" 

"Mamma  is  at  home,"  said  the  child.  She  ran 
forward,  calling  toward  the  open  doors  and  windows, 
"  Mamma  !  Mamma !  Here's  a  lady  I  " 

"  It  isn't  their  child,"  Sue  explained.  "  It's  the 
daughter  of  the  minister  who  was  killed  on  the  rail 
road,  here,  a  year  or  two  ago  —  a  very  strange  man, 
Mr.  Peck." 

"  I  have  heard  Wade  speak  of  him,"  said  Matt. 

A  handsome  and  very  happy  looking  woman  came 
to  the  door,  and  stilled  the  little  one's  boisterous  proc 
lamation  to  the  hoarse  whisper  of,  "A  lady!  A 
lady  !  "  as  she  took  her  hand  ;  but  she  did  not  rebuke 
or  correct  her. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  347 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Morrell,"  said  Suzette,  with 
rather  a  haughty  distance  ;  but  Matt  felt  that  she  kept 
aloof  with  the  pride  of  a  person  who  comes  from  an 
infected  house,  and  will  not  put  herself  at  the  risk  of 
avoidance.  "  I  wished  to  see  Dr.  Morrell  about  my 
sister.  She  isn't  well.  Will  you  kindly  ask  him  to 
call  ?  " 

"  I  will  send  him  as  soon  as  he  comes,"  said  Mrs. 
Morrell,  giving  Matt  that  glance  of  liking  which  no 
good  woman  could  withhold.  "Unless,"  she  added, 
"  you  would  like  to  come  in  and  wait  for  him." 

"  Thank  you,  no,"  said  Suzette.  "  I  must  go  back 
to  her.  Good-by." 

"  Good-by  !  "  said  Mrs.  Morrell. 

Matt  raised  his  hat  and  silently  bowed ;  but  as 
they  turned  away,  he  said  to  Suzette,  "  What  a 
happy  face !  What  a  lovely  face !  What  a  good 
face ! " 

"  She  is  a  very  good  woman,"  said  the  girl.  "  She 
has  been  very  kind  to  us.  But  so  has  everybody.  I 
couldn't  have  believed  it."  In  fact,  it  was  only  the 
kindness  of  their  neighbors  that  had  come  near  the 
defaulter's  daughters ;  the  harshness  and  the  hate  had 
kept  away. 

"  Why  shouldn't  they  be  kind  ?  "  Matt  demanded, 
with  his  heart  instantly  in  his  throat.  "  I  can't  imag 
ine —  at  such  a  time —  Don't  you  know  that  I  love 
you  ?  "  he  entreated,  as  if  that  exactly  followed ;  there 
was,  perhaps,  a  subtle  spiritual  sequence,  transcending 
all  order  of  logic  in  the  expression  of  his  passion. 


348  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

She  looked  at  him  over  her  shoulder  as  he  walked 
by  her  side,  and  said,  with  neither  surprise  nor  joy, 
"  How  can  you  say  such  a  thing  to  me  ?  " 

"  Because  it  is  true !  Because  I  can't  help  it ! 
Because  I  wish  to  be  everything  to  you,  and  I  have 
to  begin  by  saying  that.  But  don't  answer  me  now ; 
you  need  never  answer  me.  I  only  wish  you  to  use 
me  as  you  would  use  some  one  who  loved  you  beyond 
anything  on  earth,  —  as  freely  as  that,  and  yet  not  be 
bound  or  hampered  by  me  in  the  least.  Can  you  do 
that  ?  I  mean,  can  you  feel,  '  This  is  my  best  friend, 
the  truest  friend  that  any  one  can  have,  and  I  will  let 
him  do  anything  and  everything  he  wishes  for  me." 
Can  you  do  that,  — say  that  ?  " 

"  But  how  could  I  do  that  ?  I  don't  understand 
you  !  "  she  said,  faintly. 

"  Don't  you  ?     I  am  so  glad    you  don't   drive  me 
from  you  —  " 
"I?     You!" 

"  I  was  afraid  —  But  now  we  can  speak  reason 
ably  about  it ;  L.  don't  see  why  people  shouldn't.  I 
know  it's  shocking  to  speak  to  you  of  such  a  thing  at 
such  a  time.  It's  dreadful ;  and  yet  I  can't  feel 
wrong  to  have  done  it !  No  !  If  it's  as  sacred  as  it 
seems  to  me  when  I  think  of  it,  then  it  couldn't  be 
wrong  in  the  presence  of  death  itself.  I  do  love  you ; 
and  I  want  you  some  day  for  my  wife.  Yes !  But 
don't  answer  that  now !  If  you  never  answer  me,  or 
if  you  deny  me  at  last,  still  I  want  you  to  let  me  be 
your  true  lover,  while  I  can,  and  to  do  everything 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          349 

that  your  accepted  lover  could,  whether  you  ever  look 
at  me  again  or  not.  Couldn't  you  do  that?  " 

"  You  know  I  couldn't,"  she  answered,  simply. 

"  Couldn't  you  ?  "  he  asked,  and  he  fell  into  a  for 
lorn  silence,  as  if  he  could  not  say  anything  more. 
He  forced  her  to  take  the  word  by  asking,  "  Then  you 
are  offended  with  me  ?  " 

"  How  could  I  he  ?  " 

"Oh  —  " 

"It's  what  any  girl  might  be  glad  of  —  " 

"Oh,  my  —  "' 

u  And  I  am  not  so  silly  as  to  think  there  can  be  a 
wrong  time  for  it.  If  there  were,  you  would  make 
it  right,  if  you  chose  it.  You  couldn't  do  anything 
I  should  think  wrong.  And  I  — -I  —  love  you, 
too  —  " 

"  Suzette  !  Suzette  !  "  he  called  wildly,  as  if  she 
were  a  great  way  off.  It  seemed  to  him  his  heart 
would  burst.  He  got  awkwardly  before  her,  and  tried 
to  seize  her  hand. 

She  slipped  by  him,  with  a  pathetic  "  Don't !  But 
you  know  I  never  could  be  your  wife.  You  know 
that." 

"  I  don't  know  it.     Why  shouldn't  you  ?  " 

"Because  I  couldn't  bring  my  father's  shame  on  my 
husband." 

"  It  wouldn't  touch  me,  any  more  than  it  touches 
you  !  " 

"It  would  touch  your  father  and  mother  —  and 
Louise." 


350  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  They  all  admire  you  and  honor  you.  They  think 
you're  everything  that's  true  and  grand." 

"  Yes,  while  I  keep  to  myself.  And  I  shall  keep  to 
myself.  I  know  how ;  and  I  shall  not  give  way. 
Don't  think  it !  " 

"You  will  do  what  is  right.    I  shall  think  that." 

"  Don't  praise  me!  I  can't  bear  it." 

"But  I  love  you,  and  how  can  I  help  praising  you? 
And  if  you  love  me  —  " 

"  I  do.  I  do,  with  all  my  heart."  She  turned  and 
gave  him  an  impassioned  look  from  the  height  of  her 
inapproachability. 

"  Then  I  won't  ask  you  to  be  my  wife,  Suzette !  I 
know  how  you  feel ;  I  won't  be  such  a  liar  as  to  pre 
tend  I  don't.  And  I  will  respect  your  feeling,  as  the 
holiest  thing  on  earth.  And  if  you  wish,  we  will  be 
engaged  as  no  other  lovers  ever  were.  You  shall 
promise  nothing  but  to  let  me  help  you  all  I  can,  for 
our  love's  sake,  and  I  will  promise  never  to  speak  to 
you  of  our  love  again.  That  shall  be  our  secret  — 
our  engagement.  Will  you  promise  ?" 

"  It  will  be  hard  for  you,"  she  said,  with  a  pitying 
look,  which  perhaps  tried  him  as  sorely  as  anything 
could. 

"  Not  if  I  can  believe  I  am  making  it  easy  for  you." 

They  walked  along,  and  she  said  with  averted  eyes, 
that  he  knew  had  tears  in  them,  "  I  promise." 

"  And  I  promise,  too,"  he  said. 

She  impulsively  put  out  her  left  hand  toward  him, 
and  he  held  its  slim  fingers  in  his  right  a  moment,  and 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          351 

then  let  it  drop.  They  both  honestly  thought  they 
had  got  the  better  of  that  which  laughs  from  its  in 
numerable  disguises  at  all  stratagems  and  all  devices 
to  escape  it. 

"  And  now,"  he  said,  "  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about 
what  brought  me  over  here  to-day.     I  thought  at  first 

that  I  was  only  going  to  see  your  lawyer." 
23 


XVIII. 

MATT  felt  that  lie  need  now  no  longer  practise 
those  reserves  in  speaking  to  Sue  of  her  father,  which 
he  had  observed  so  painfully  hitherto.  Neither  did 
she  shrink  from  the  fact  they  had  to  deal  with.  In  the 
trust  established  between  them,  they  spoke  of  it  all 
openly,  and  if  there  was  any  difference  in  them  con 
cerning  it,  the  difference  was  in  his  greater  forbear 
ance  toward  the  unhappy  man.  They  both  spoke  of 
his  wrong-doing  as  if  it  were  his  infirmity  ;  they  could 
not  do  otherwise  ;  and  they  both  insensibly  assumed 
his  irresponsibility  in  a  measure  ;  they  dwelt  in  the 
fiction  or  the  persuasion  of  a  mental  obliquity  which 
would  account  for  otherwise  unaccountable  things. 

"  It  is  what  my  sister  has  always  said,"  Sue  eagerly 
assented  to  his  suggestion  of  this  theory.  "  I  suppose 
it's  what  I've  always  believed,  too,  somehow,  or  I 
couldn't  have  lived." 

"Yes;  yes.  it  must  be  so,"  Matt  insisted.  "But 
now  the  question  is  how  to  reach  him,  and  make  some 
beginning  of  the  end  with  him.  I  suppose  it's  the  sus 
pense  and  the  uncertainty  that  is  breaking  your  sister 
down  ?  " 

"  Yes  —  that  and  what  we  ought  to  do  about  giving 
up  the  property.  We  —  quarrelled  about  that  at  first ; 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  353 

we  couldn't  see  it  alike  ;  but  now  I've  yielded  ;  we've 
both  yielded  ;  and  we  don't  know  what  to  do." 

"  We  must  talk  all  that  over  with  your  lawyer,  in 
connection  with  something  I've  just  heard  of."  He 
told  her  of  Pinney's  scheme,  and  he  said,  "  We  must 
see  if  we  can't  turn  it  to  account." 

They  agreed  not  to  talk  of  her  father  with  Adeline, 
but  she  began  it  herself.  She  looked  very  old  and 
frail,  as  she  sat  nervously  rocking  herself  in  a  corner 
of  the  cottage  parlor,  and  her  voice  had  a  sharp, 
anxious  note.  "  What  I  think  is,  that  now  we  know 
father  is  alive,  we  oughtn't  to  do  anything  about  the 
property  without  hearing  from  him.  It  stands  to 
reason,  don't  you  think  it  does,  Mr.  Hilary,  that  he 
would  know  better  than  anybody  else,  what  we  ought 
to  do.  Any  rate,  I  think  we  ought  to  wait  and  con 
sult  with  him  about  it,  and  see  what  he  says.  The 
property  belonged  to  mother  in  the  first  place,  and  he 
mightn't  like  to  have  us  part  with  it." 

"  I  don't  think  you  need  trouble  about  that,  now, 
Miss  Northwick,"  said  Matt.  "  Nothing  need  be 
done  about  the  property  at  present." 

"  But  I  keep  thinking  about  it.  I  want  to  do  what 
Sue  thinks  is  right,  and  to  see  it  just  in  the  light  she 
does;  and  I've  told  her  I  would  do  exactly  as  she 
said  about  it;  but  now  she  won't  say;  and  so  I  think 
we've  got  to  wait  and  hear  from  father.  Don't  you  ?  " 

"  Decidedly,  I  think  you  ought  to  do  nothing  now, 
till  you  hear  from  him,"  said  Matt. 

"  I  knew  you  would,"  said   the  old  maid,  "  and  if 


354  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

Sue  will  be  ruled  by  me,  she'll  see  that  it  will  all  turn 
out  right.  I  know  father,  and  I  know  he'll  want  to 
do  what  is  sensible,  and  at  the  same  time  honorable. 
He  is  a  person  who  could  never  bear  to  wrong  any 
one  out  of  a  cent/' 

"  Well,"  said  Sue,  "  we  will  do  what  Mr.  Hilary 
says  ;  and  now,  try  not  to  worry  about  it  any  more," 
she  coaxed. 

"  Oh,  yes !  It's  well  enough  to  say  not  to  worry 
now,  when  my  mind's  got  going  on  it,"  said  the  old 
maid,  querulously ;  she  flung  her  weak  frame  against  the 
chair-back,  and  she  began  to  wipe  the  gathering  tears. 
"But  if  you'd  agreed  with  me  in  the  first  place,  it 
wouldn't  have  come  to  this.  Now  I'm  all  broken 
down,  and  I  don't  know  when  I  shall  be  wrell  again." 

It  was  a  painful  moment ;  Sue  patiently  adjusted 
the  cushion  to  her  sister's  shoulders,  while  Adeline's 
tongue  ran  helplessly  on.  "  You  wrere  so  headstrong 
and  stubborn,  I  thought  you  would  kill  me.  You  were 
just  like  a  rock,  and  I  could  beat  myself  to  pieces 
against  you,  and  you  wouldn't  move." 

"  I  was  wrong,"  said  the  proud  girl,  meekly, 

"I'm  sure,"  Adeline  whimpered,  "I  hate  to  make 
an  exhibition  before  Mr.  Hilary,  as  much  as  any  one, 
but  I  can't  help  it ;  no,  I  can't.  My  nerves  are  all 
gone." 

The  doctor  came,  and  Sue  followed  Matt  out  of 
doors,  to  leave  her,  for  the  first  few  confidential  mo 
ments,  sacred  to  the  flow  of  symptoms,  alone  writh  the 
physician.  There  was  a  little  sequestered  space  among 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  355 

the  avenue  firs  beside  the  lodge,  with  a  bench,  toward 
which  he  led  the  way,  but  the  girl  would  not  sit  down. 
She  stood  with  her  arms  fallen  at  her  side,  and  looked 
him  steadily  in  the  face. 

"  It's  all  true  that  she  said  of  me.  I  set  myself  like 
a  rock  against  her.  I  have  made  her  sick,  and  if  she 
died,  I  should  be  her  murderer  !  " 

He  put  his  arms  round  her,  and  folded  her  to  his 
heart.  "Oh,  my  love,  my  love,  my  love!"  he  la 
mented  and  exulted  over  her. 

She  did  not  try  to  resist ;  she  let  her  arms  hang  at 
her  side;  she  said,  "Is  this  the  way  we  keep  our 
word  ?  —  Already  !  " 

"  Our  word  was  made  to  be  broken  ;  we  must  have 
meant  it  so.  I'm  glad  we  could  break  it  so  soon. 
Now  I  can  truly  help  you ;  now  that  you  are  to  be 
my  wife." 

She  did  not  gainsay  him,  but  she  asked,  "  What  will 
you  think  when  you  know  —  you  must  have  known 
that  I  used  to  care  for  some  else  ;  but  he  never  cared 
for  me  ?  It  ought  to  make  you  despise  me  ;  it  made 
me  despise  myself !  But  it  is  true.  I  di(J  care  all  the 
world  for  him,  once.  Now  will  you  say  —  " 

"  Now,  more  than  ever,"  said  the  young  man,  si 
lencing  her  lips  with  his  own,  and  in  their  trance  of 
love  the  world  seemed  to  reel  away  from  under  their 
feet,  with  all  its  sorrows  and  shames,  and  leave  them 
in  mid-heaven. 

"  Suzette !  "  Adeline's  voice  called  from  within. 
"  Suzette  !  Where  are  you  ?  " 


356  THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY. 

Sue  released  herself,  and  ran  into  the  cottage.  She 
came  out  again  in  a  little  while,  and  said  that  the  doc 
tor  thought  Adeline  had  better  go  to  bed  for  a  day  or 
two  and  have  a  thorough  rest,  and  relief  from  all  ex 
citement.  "We  mustn't  talk  before  her  any  more, 
and  you  mustn't  stay  any  longer.*' 

He  accepted  the  authority  she  instinctively  assumed 
over  him,  and  found  his  dismissal  already  of  the  order 
of  things.  He  said,  "Yes,  I'll  go  at  once.  But 
about  —  " 

She  put  a  card  into  his  hand.  "  You  can  see  Mr. 
Putney,  and  whatever  you  and  he  think  best,  will  be 
best.  Haven't  you  been  our  good  angel  ever  since  — > 
Oh,  I'm  not  half  good  enough  for  you,  and  I  shouldn't 
be,  even  if  there  were  no  stain  — ' 

"  Stop  !  "  he  said ;  he  caught  her  hand,  and  pulled 
her  toward  him. 

The  doctor  came  out,  and  said  in  a  lo\v  voice, 
"  There's  nothing  to  be  anxious  about,  but  she  really 
must  have  quiet.  I'll  send  Mrs.  Morrell  down  to  see 
you,  after  tea.  She's  quiet  itself." 

Suzette  submitted,  and  let  Matt  take  her  hand  again 
in  parting. 

"  Will  you  give  me  a  lift,  doctor,  if  you're  going 
toward  town  ?  " 

"  Get  in,"  said  the  doctor. 

Sue  went  indoors,  and  the  two  men  drove  off 
together. 

Matt  looked  at  the   card  in  his  hand,  and  read : 

"  Mr.  Putney :  Please  talk  to  Mr.  Hilary  as  you 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          357 

would  to  my  sister  or  me."  Suzette's  printed  name 
served  for  signature.  Matt  put  the  card  in  his  pocket- 
book,  and  then  he  said,  "What  sort  of  man  is  Mr. 
Putney,  doctor  ?  " 

"Mr.  Putney,"  said  the  doctor,  with  a  twinkle  of 
his  blue  eyes,  "  is  one  of  those  uncommon  people  who 
have  enemies.  He  has  a  good  many  because  he's  a 
man  that  thinks,  and  then  says  what  he  thinks.  But 
he's  his  own  worst  enemy,  because  from  time  to  time 
he  gets  drunk." 

"  A  character,"  said  Matt.  "  Do  you  think  he's  a 
safe  one?  Doesn't  his  getting  drunk  from  time  to 
time  interfere  with  his  usefulness  ?  " 

"  Well,  of  course,"  said  the  doctor.  "  It's  bad  for 
him;  but  I  think  it's  slowly  getting  better.  Yes, 
decidedly.  It's  very  extraordinary,  but  ever  since 
he's  been  in  charge  of  the  Miss  Northwicks'  inter- 
csrs 

"Yes  ;  that's  what  I  was  thinking  of." 

"  He's  kept  perfectly  straight.  It's  as  if  the  re 
sponsibilities  had  steadied  him." 

"  But  if  he  goes  on  sprees,  he  may  be  on  the  verge 
of  one  that's  gathering  violence  from  its  postpone 
ment,"  Matt  suggested. 

"  I  think  not,"  said  the  doctor  after  a  moment. 
"But  of  course  I  can't  tell." 

"  They  trust  him  so  implicitly,"  said  Matt. 

"  I  know,"  said  the  doctor.  "  And  I  know  that 
he's  entirely  devoted  to  them.  The  fact  is,  Putney's 
a  very  dear  friend  of  mine." 


358  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

u  Oh,  excuse  me  —  " 

"  No,  no !  "  The  doctor  stayed  Matt's  apologies. 
"  I  understand  just  what  you  mean.  He  disliked  their 
father  very  much.  He  was  principled  against  him  as 
a  merely  rich  man,  with  mischievous  influence  on  the 
imaginations  of  all  the  poor  people  about  him  who 
wanted  to  be  like  him  —  " 

"  Oh,  that's  rather  good,"  said  Matt. 

"Do  you  think  so?"  asked  the  doctor,  looking 
round  at  him.  "  Well !  I  supposed  you  would  be  all 
the  other  way.  Well !  What  I  was  saying  was  that 
Putney  looks  upon  these  poor  girls  as  their  father's 
chief  victims.  I  think  he  was  touched  by  their  com 
ing  to  him,  and  has  pitied  them.  The  impression  is 
that  he's  managed  their  affairs  very  well ;  I  don't 
know  about  such  things ;  but  I  know  he's  managed 
them  honorably ;  I  would  stake  my  life  on  it ;  and  I 
believe  he'll  hold  out  straight  to  the  last.  I  suppose," 
the  doctor  conjectured,  at  the  end,  "  that  they  will  try 
to  get  at  Northwick  now,  and  arrange  with  his  cred 
itors  for  his  return." 

"  I  don't  mind  telling  you,"  said  Matt,  "  that  it's 
been  tried  and  failed.  The  State's  attorney  insists  that 
he  shall  come  back  and  stand  his  trial,  first  of  all." 

"  Oh !  "  said  the  doctor. 

"  Of  course,  that's  right  from  the  legal  point  of 
view.  But  in  the  meantime,  nobody  knows  where 
Mr.  Northwick  is." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  the  doctor,  "  it  would  have  been 
1  better  for  him  not  to  have  written  that  letter." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  359 

"  It's  hard  to  say,"  Matt  answered.  "  I  thought  so, 
too,  at  first.  I  thought  it  was  cowardly  and  selfish  of 
him  to  take  away  his  children's  superstition  about  his 
honesty.  You  knew  that  they  held  to  that  through 
all  ?  " 

"Most  touching  thing  in  the  world,"  said  the 
doctor,  leaning  forward  to  push  a  fly  off  his  horse 
with  the  limp  point  of  his  whip.  "That  poor  old 
maid  has  talked  it  into  me  till  I  almost  believed  it 
myself." 

"I  don't  know  that  I  should  hold  him  severely 
accountable.  And  I'm  not  sure  now  that  I  should 
condemn  him  for  writing  that  letter.  It  must  have 
been  a  great  relief  to  him.  In  a  way,  you  may  say 
he  had  to  do  it.  It's  conceivable  that  if  he  had  kept 
it  on  his  mind  any  longer,  his  mind  would  have  given 
way.  As  it  is,  they  have  now  the  comfort  of  another 
superstition  —  if  it  is  a  superstition.  What  do  you 
think,  doctor  ?  Do  you  believe  that  there  was  a  men 
tal  twist  in  him  ?  " 

"  There  seems  to  be  in  nearly  all  these  defaulters. 
What  they  do  is  so  senseless  —  so  insane.  I  suppose 
that's  the  true  theory  of  all  crime.  But  it  won't  do  to 
act  upon  it,  yet  awhile." 

«  No." 

The  doctor  went  on  after  a  pause,  with  a  laugh  of 
enjoyment  at  the  notion.  "  Above  all,  it  won't  do  to 
let  the  defaulters  act  upon  that  theory,  and  apply  for 
admission  to  the  insane  asylums  instead  of  taking  the 
express  for  Canada,  when  they're  found  out." 


360  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Matt.  He  wondered  at  himself  for 
being  able  to  analyze  the  offence  of  Suzette's  father 
so  cold-bloodedly.  But  in  fact  he  could  not  relate  the 
thought  of  her  to  the  thought  of  him  in  his  sin,  at  all ; 
he  could  only  realize  their  kindred  in  her  share  of  his 
suffering. 


XIX. 

PUTNEY  accepted  Suzette's  authorization  of  Matt 
with  apparent  unconsciousness  of  anything  but  its  im 
mediate  meaning,  and  they  talked  Pinney's  scheme 
intimately  over  together.  In  the  end,  it  still  remained 
a  question  whether  the  energies  of  such  an  investiga 
tor  could  be  confined  to  the  discovery  of  Northwick' s 
whereabouts ;  whether  his  newspaper  instincts  would 
not  be  too  strong  for  any  sense  of  personal  advantage 
that  could  be  appealed  to  in  him.  They  both  believed 
that  it  would  not  be  long  before  Northwick  followed 
up  the  publication  of  his  letter  by  some  communica 
tion  with  his  family. 

But  time  began  to  go  by  again,  and  Northwick  made 
no  further  sign ;  the  flurry  of  activity  which  his  letter 
had  called  out  in  the  detectives  came  to  nothing. 
Their  search  was  not  very  strenuous  ;  Northwick's 
creditors  were  of  various  minds  as  to  the  amount  of 
money  he  had  carried  away  with  him.  Every  one 
knew  that  if  he  chose  to  stay  in  Canada,  he  could  not 
be  molested  there  ;  and  it  seemed  very  improbable 
that  he  could  be  persuaded  to  put  himself  within 
reach  of  the  law.  The  law  had  no  terms  to  offer 
him,  and  there  was  really  nothing  to  be  done. 

Putney  forecast  all  this  in  his  talk  with  Matt,  when 


362  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

he  held  that  they  must  wait  Northwick's  motion.  He 
professed  himself  willing  to  wait  as  long  as  Northwick 
chose,  though  he  thought  they  would  not  have  to  wait 
long,  and  he  contended  for  a  theory  of  the  man's  whole 
performance  which  he  said  he  should  like  to  have 
tested  before  a  jury. 

Matt  could  not  make  out  how  much  he  really  meant 
by  saying  that  Northwick  could  be  defended  very 
fairly  on  the  ground  of  insanity ;  and  that  he  would 
enjoy  managing  such  a  defence.  It  was  a  common 
thing  to  show  that  a  murderer  was  insane  ;  why  not  a 
defaulter  ?  Tilted  back  in  his  chair,  with  one  leg  over 
the  corner  of  his  table,  and  changing  the  tobacco  in 
his  mouth  from  one  cheek  to  the  other  as  he  talked, 
the  lawyer  outlined  the  argument  which  he  said  could 
be  made  very  effective.  There  was  the  fact  to  begin 
with,  that  Northwick  was  a  very  wealthy  man,  and 
had  no  need  of  more  money  when  he  began  to  specu 
late  ;  Putney  held  that  this  want  of  motive  could  be 
made  a  strong  point ;  and  that  the  reckless,  almost 
open,  way  in  which  Northwick  used  the  company's 
money,  when  he  began  to  borrow,  was  proof  in  itself 
of  unsound  mind :  apparently  he  had  no  sense  what 
ever  of  meum  and  tuum,  especially  tuum.  Then,  the 
total  collapse  of  the  man  when  he  was  found  out ;  his 
flight  without  an  effort  to  retrieve  himself,  although 
his  shortage  was  by  no  means  hopelessly  vast,  and 
could  have  been  almost  made  up  by  skilful  use  of  the 
credit  that  Northwick  could  command,  was  another 
evidence  of  shaken  reason.  But  besides  all  this,  there 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.  363 

was  liis  behavior  since  lie  left  home.  He  had  been 
absent  nearly  five  months,  and  in  that  time  he  had 
made  no  attempt  whatever  to  communicate  with  his 
family,  although  he  must  have  known  that  it  was  per 
fectly  safe  for  him  to  do  so.  He  was  a  father  who 
was  almost  dotingly  fond  of  his  children,  and  singu 
larly  attached  to  his  home  ;  yet  he  had  remained  all 
that  time  in  voluntary  exile,  and  he  had  left  them  in 
entire  uncertainty  as  to  his  fate  except  so  far  as  they 
could  accept  the  probability  of  his  death  by  a  horrible 
casualty.  This  inversion  of  the  natural  character  of 
a  man  was  one  of  the  most  striking  phenomena  of 
insanity,  and  Putney,  for  the  purpose  of  argument, 
maintained  that  it  could  be  made  to  tell  tremendously 
with  a  jury. 

Matt  was  unable  to  enjoy  the  sardonic  metaphysics 
of  the  case  with  Putney.  He  said  gravely  that  he 
had  been  talking  of  the  matter  with  Dr.  Morrell,  and 
he  had  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  taint  of  insanity  in 
every  wrong-doer;  some  day  he  believed  the  law 
would  take  cognizance  of  the  fact. 

"  I  don't  suppose  the  time  is  quite  ripe  yet,  though 
I  think  I  could  make  out  a  strong  case  for  Brother 
Northwick,"  said  Putney.  He  seemed  to  enter  into 
it  more  fully,  as  if  he  had  a  mischievous  perception  of 
Matt's  uneasiness,  and  chose  to  torment  him ;  but 
then  apparently  he  changed  his  mind,  and  dealt  with 
other  aspects  of  their  common  interest  so  seriously 
and  sympathetically,  that  Matt  parted  from  him  with 
a  regret  that  he  could  not  remove  the  last  barrier  be- 


364  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

tween  them,  and  tell  the  lawyer  that  he  concerned 
himself  so  anxiously  in  the  affairs  of  that  wretched 
defaulter  because  his  dearest  hope  was  that  the 
daughter  of  the  criminal  would  some  day  be  his  wife. 

But  Matt  felt  that  this  fact  must  first  be  confided  to 
those  who  were  nearest  him ;  and  how  to  shape  it  in 
terms  that  would  convey  the  fact  and  yet  hide  the  re- 
pulsiveness  he  knew  in  it,  was  the  question  that  teased 
him  all  the  way  back  to  Vardley,  like  -some  tiresome 
riddle.  lie  understood  why  his  love  for  Suzette 
Northwick  must  be  grievous  to  his  father  and  mother ; 
how  embarrassing,  how  disappointing,  how  really  in 
some  sort  disastrous  ;  and  yet  he  felt  that  if  there 
was  anything  more  sacred  than  another  in  the  world 
for  him,  it  was  that  love.  He  must  be  true  to  it 
at  whatever  cost,  and  in  every  event,  and  he  must 
begin  by  being  perfectly  frank  with  those  whom  it 
would  afflict,  and  confessing  to  himself  all  its  difficul 
ties  and  drawbacks.  He  was  not  much  afraid  of  deal 
ing  with  his  father ;  they  were  both  men,  and  they 
could  look  at  it  from  the  man's  point  of  view.  Be 
sides,  his  father  really  cared  little  what  people  would 
say ;  after  the  first  fever  of  disgust,  if  he  did  not 
change  wholly  and  favor  it  vehemently,  he  would  see 
so  much  good  in  it  that  he  would  be  promptly  and 
finally  reconciled. 

But  Matt  knew  that  his  mother  was  of  another 
make,  arid  that  the  blow  would  be  much  harder  for 
her  to  bear;  his  problem  was  how  to  lighten  it. 
Sometimes  he  thought  he  had  better  not  try  to  lighten 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  365 

it,  but  let  it  fall  at  once,  and  trust  to  her  affection  and 
good  sense  for  the  rest.  But  when  he  found  himself 
alone  with  her  that  night,  he  began  by  making  play 
and  keeping  her  beyond  reach.  He  was  so  lost  in 
this  perverse  effort  that  he  was  not  aware  of  some 
such  effort  on  her  part,  till  she  suddenly  dropped  it, 
and  said,  "  Matt,  there  is  something  I  wish  to  speak  to 
you  about  —  very  seriously." 

His  heart  jumped  into  his  throat,  but  he  said 
"  Well  ?  "  and  she  went  on. 

"  Louise  tells  me  that  you  think  of  bringing  this 
young  man  down  to  the  shore  with  you  when  you 
come  to  see  us  next  week." 

"  Maxwell  ?  I  thought  the  change  might  do  him 
good ;  yes,"  said  Matt,  with  a  cowardly  joy  in  his 
escape  from  the  worst  he  feared.  He  thought  she  was 
going  to  speak  to  him  of  Suzette. 

She  said,  "  I  don't  wish  you  to  bring  him.  I  don't 
wish  Louise  to  see  him  again  after  she  leaves  this 
place  —  ever  again.  She  is  fascinated  with  him." 

"Fascinated?" 

"I  can't  call  it  anything  else.  I  don't  say  that 
she's  in  love ;  but  there's  no  question  but  she's 
allowed  her  curiosity  to  run  wild,  and  her  fancy  to  be 
taken ;  the  two  strongest  things  in  her  —  in  most 
girls.  I  want  to  break  it  all  up." 

"  But  do  you  think  —  " 

"I  know.  It  isn't  that  she's  with  him  at  every 
moment,  but  that  her  thoughts  are  with  him  when 
they're  apart.  He  puzzles  her ;  he  piques  her ;  she's 


366  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

always  talking  and  asking  about  him.  It's  their  dif 
ference  in  everything  that  does  it.  I  don't  mean  to 
say  that  her  heart  is  touched,  and  I  don't  intend  it 
shall  be.  So,  you  mustn't  ask  him  to  the  shore  with 
you,  and  if  you've  asked  him  already,  you  must  get 
out  of  it.  If  you  think  he  needs  sea  air,  you  can  get 
him  board  at  some  of  the  resorts.  But  not  near  us." 
She  asked,  in  default  of  any  response  from  her  son, 
"  You  don't  think,  Matt,  it  would  be  well  for  the  ac 
quaintance  to  go  on  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  mother ;  you're  quite  right  as  to  that," 
said  Matt,  "  if  you're  not  mistaken  in  supposing  — 

"  I'm  not ;  you  may  depend  upon  it.  And  I'm  glad 
you  can  see  the  matter  from  my  point  of  view.  It  is 
all  very  well  for  you  to  have  your  queer  opinions,  and 
even  to  live  them.  I  think  it's  all  ridiculous ;  but 
your  father  and  I  both  respect  you  for  your  sincerity, 
though  your  course  lias  been  a  great  disappointment 
to  us." 

"  I  know  that,  mother,"  said  Matt,  groaning  in 
spirit  to  think  how  much  worse  the  disappointment 
he  was  meditating  must  be,  and  feeling  himself  dis 
honest  and  cowardly,  through  and  through. 

"But  I  feel  sure,"  Mrs.  Hilary  went  on,  "that 
when  it's  a  question  of  your  sister,  you  would  wish  her 
life  to  be  continued  on  the  same  plane,  and  in  the  sur 
roundings  she  had  always  been  used  to." 

"  I  should  think  that  best,  certainly,  for  a  girl  of 
Louise's  ideas,"  said  Matt,  trying  to  get  his  own  to 
the  surface. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          367 

"Ideas!"  cried  his  mother.  "She  has  no  ideas. 
She  merely  has  impulses,  and  her  impulses  are  to  do 
what  people  wish.  But  her  education  and  breeding 
have  been  different  from  those  of  such  a  young  man, 
and  she  would  be  very  unhappy  with  him.  They 
never  could  quite  understand  each  other,  no  matter 
how  much  they  were  in  love.  I  know  he  is  very 
talented,  and  all  that ;  and  I  shouldn't  at  all  mind  his 
being  poor.  I  never  minded  Cyril  Wade's  being  poor, 
when  I  thought  he  had  taken  her  fancy,  because  he 
was  one  of  ourselves  ;  and  this  young  man  —  Matt, 
you  can't  pretend,  that  with  all  his  intellectual  qual 
ities,  he's  what  one  calls  a  gentleman.  With  his  ori 
gin  and  bringing  up  ;  his  coarse  experiences  ;  all  his 
trials  and  struggles ;  even  with  his  successes,  he 
couldn't  be  ;  and  Louise  could  not  be  happy  with 
him  for  that  very  reason.  He  might  have  all  the 
gifts,  all  the  virtues,  under  the  sun  ;  I  don't  deny  that 
he  has  — " 

"He  has  some  very  serious  faults,"  Matt  inter 
rupted. 

"  We  all  have,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  tolerantly.  "But 
he  might  be  a  perfect  saint  —  a  hero  —  a  martyr,  and 
if  he  wasn't  what  one  calls  a  gentleman,  don't  you 
see  ?  We  can't  be  frank  about  such  things,  here, 
because  we  live  in  a  republic  ;  but  —  " 

"  We  get  there,  just  the  same,"  said  Matt,  with 
unwonted  slang. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  mother.     "  That  is  what  I  mean." 

"  And  you're  quite  right,  as  to  the  facts,  mother." 
24 


3G8  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

He  got  up,  and  began  to  walk  about  the  long,  low 
living-room  of  the  farm-house  where  they  were  sitting. 
Louise  had  gone  to  direct  her  maid  in  packing  for  her 
flitting  to  the  seaside  in  the  morning ;  Matt  could  see 
a  light  in  the  ell-chamber  where  Maxwell  was  proba 
bly  writing.  "  The  self-made  man  can  never  be  the 
society  equal  of  the  society-made  man.  He  may  have 
more  brains,  more  money,  more  virtue,  but  he's  a 
kind  of  inferior,  and  he  betrays  his  inferiority  in  every 
worldly  exigency.  And  if  he's  successful,  he's  so  be 
cause  he's  been  stronger,  fiercer,  harder  than  others  in 
the  battle  of  life.  That's  one  reason  why  I  say  that 
there  oughtn't  to  be  any  battle  of  life.  Maxwell  has 
the  defects  of  his  disadvantages  —  I  see  that.  He's 

o 

often  bitter,  and  cynical,  and  cruel  because  he  has  had 
to  fight  for  his  bread.  He  isn't  Louise's  social  equal ; 
I  quite  agree  with  you  there,  mother  ;  and  if  she  wants 
to  live  for  society,  he  would  be  always  in  danger  of 
wounding  her  by  his  inferiority  to  other  people  of 
her  sort.  I'm  sorry  for  Maxwell,  but  I  don't  pity 
him,  especially.  He  bears  the  penalty  of  his  mis 
fortunes  ;  but  he  is  strong  enough  to  bear  it.  Let 
him  stand  it!  But  there  are  others  —  weaker,  un- 
happier —  Mother!  You  haven't  asked  me  yet 
about — the  North  wicks."  Matt  stopped  in  front  of 
her  chair,  and  looked  down  into  her  lifted  face,  where 
the  satisfaction  his  acquiescence  in  her  views  concerning 
Louise  was  scarcely  marred  by  her  perception  that  he 
had  not  changed  his  mind  at  all  on  other  points.  She 
was  used  to  his  way  of  thinking,  and  she  gratefully 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          369 

resolved  to  be  more  and  more  patient  with  it,  and  give 
him  time  for  the  change  that  was  sure  to  come.  She 
interpreted  the  look  of  stormy  wistfulness  he  wore  as 
an  expression  of  his  perplexity  in  the  presence  of  the 
contradictory  facts  and  theories. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  expected  to  do  that.  You  know 
I've  seen  them  so  very  lately,  and  with  this  about 
Louise  on  my  mind —  How  are  they?  That  poor 
Adeline —  I'm  afraid  it's  killing  her.  Were  you 
able  to  do  anything  for  them?  " 

"  Ah,  I  don't  know,"  the  young  man  sighed.  "  They 
have  to  suffer  for  their  misfortunes,  too." 

"  It  seems  to  be  the  order  of  Providence,"  said  Mrs. 
Hilary,  with  the  resignation  of  the  philosophical  spec 
tator. 

"  No  !  "  Matt  protested.  "  It's  the  disorder  of  im 
providence.  There's  nothing  of  the  Divine  will  in 
consequences  so  unjust  and  oppressive.  Those  women 
are  perfectly  innocent;  they've  only  wished  to  do 
right,  and  tried  to  do  it ;  but  they're  under  a  ban  the 
same  as  if  they  had  shared  their  father's  guilt.  They 
have  no  friends  —  " 

"  Well,  Matt,"  said  his  mother,  with  dignity,  u  I 
think  you  can  hardly  say  that.  I'm  sure  that  as  far 
as  we  are  concerned,  we  have  nothing  to  reproach  our 
selves  with.  I  think  we've  gone  to  the  extreme  to 
show  our  good-will.  How  much  further  do  you  want 
us  to  go  ?  Come  ;  I  don't  like  your  saying  this  !  " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon.  I  certainly  don't  blame  you, 
or  Louise,  or  father.  I  blame  myself  —  for  cowardice 


370  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

—  for  — for  im worthiness  in  being  afraid  to  say  —  to 
tell  you —  Mother,"  he  burst  out  suddenly,  after  a 
halt,  "  I've  asked  Suzette  Northwick  to  marry  nie." 

Matt  had  tried  to  imagine  himself  saying  this  to  his 
mother,  and  the  effect  it  would  have,  ever  since  he 
had  left  Suzette's  absorbing  presence  ;  all  through  his 
talk  with  Putney,  and  all  the  way  home,  and  now 
throughout  what  he  and  his  mother  had  been  saying 
of  Maxwell  and  Louise.  But  it  always  seemed  im 
possible,  and  more  and  more  impossible,  so  that  when 
he  found  the  words  spoken  in  his  own  voice,  it  seemed 
wholly  incredible. 


XX. 

THE  effect  of  a  thing  is  never  quite  what  we  have 
forecast.  Mrs.  Hilary  heard  Matt's  confession  with 
out  apparently  anything  of  his  tumult  in  making  it. 
Women,  after  all,  dwell  mainly  in  the  region  of  the  af 
fections  ;  even  the  most  worldly  women  have  their  likes 
and  dislikes,  and  the  question  of  the  sort  Matt  had 
sprung  upon  his  mother,  is  first  a  personal  question  with 
them.  She  was  not  a  very  worldly  woman  ;  but  she 
liked  her  place  in  the  world,  and  she  preferred  con 
formity  and  similarity ;  the  people  she  was  born  of 
and  bred  with,  were  the  nicest  kind  of  people,  and  she 
did  not  see  how  any  one  could  differ  from  them  to 
advantage.  Their  ideas  were  the  best,  or  they  would 
not  have  had  them ;  she,  herself,  did  not  wish  to  have 
other  ideas.  But  her  family  was  more,  far  more,  to 
her  than  her  world  was.  She  knew  that  in  his  time  her 
husband  had  not  had  the  ideas  of  her  world  concern 
ing  slavery,  but  she  had  always  contrived  to  honor  the 
ideas  of  both.  Since  her  son  had  begun  to  disagree 
with  her  world  concerning  what  he  called  the  indus 
trial  slavery,  she  contrived,  without  the  sense  of  incon 
sistency,  to  suffer  him  and  yet  remain  with  the  world. 
She  represented  in  her  maternal  tolerance,  the  principle 
actuating  the  church,  which  includes  the  facts  as  fast 


372  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

as  they  accomplish  themselves,  without  changing  any 
point  of  doctrine. 

"Then  you  mean,  Matt,"  she  asked,  "  that  you  are 
going  to  marry  her  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Matt,  "  that  is  what  I  mean,"  and  then, 
something  in  his  mother's  way  of  taking  it  nettled  him 
on  Sue's  behalf.  "  But  I  don't  know  that  my  marry 
ing  her  necessarily  followed  from  my  asking  her.  I 
expected  her  to  refuse  me." 

"  Men  always  do  ;  I  don't  know  why,"  said  Mrs. 
Hilary.  "  But  in  this  case  I  can't  imagine  it." 

"  Can't  imagine  it  ?  /  can  imagine  it !  "  Matt  re 
torted  ;  but  his  mother  did  not  seem  to  notice  his 
resentment. 

"Then,  if  it's  quite  settled,  you  don't  wish  me  to 
say  anything  ?  " 

"I  wish  you  to  say  everything,  mother  —  all  that 
you  feel  and  think  —  about  her,  and  the  whole  affair. 
But  I  don't  wish  you  to  think  —  I  can't  let  you  think 
—  that  she  has  ever,  by  one  look  or  word,  allowed  me 
to  suppose  that  my  offer  would  be  welcome." 

"  Oh,  I  didn't  mean  that,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary.  "  She 
would  be  too  proud  for  that.  But  I've  no  doubt  it 
was  welcome."  Matt  fretted  in  silence,  but  he  allowed 
his  mother  to  go  on.  "She  is  a  very  proud  girl,  and 
I've  no  doubt  that  what  she's  been  through  has  inten 
sified  her  pride." 

" I  don't  suppose  she's  perfect,"  said  Matt.  "I'm 
not  perfect,  myself.  But  I  don't  conceal  her  faults 
from  myself  any  more  than  I  do  my  own.  I  know 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  373 

she's  proud.  I  don't  admire  pride ;  but  I  suppose 
that  with  her  it  can't  be  helped.53 

"I  don't  know  that  I  object  to  it,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary. 
"  It  doesn't  always  imply  hardness  ;  it  goes  with  very 
good  things,  sometimes.  That  hauteur  of  hers  is  very 
effective.  I've  seen  it  carry  her  through  with  people 
who  might  have  been  disposed  to  look  down  on  her 
for  some  reasons." 

"I  shouldn't  value  it,  for  that,"  Matt  interrupted. 

"No.  But  she  made  it  serve  her  instead  of  her 
want  of  those  family  connections  that  every  one  else 
has  —  " 

"  She  will  have  all  of  ours,  I  hope,  mother  !  "  Matt 
broke  in,  with  a  smile  ;  but  his  mother  would  not  be 
diverted  from  the  point  she  was  making. 

"  And  that  it  always  seemed  so  odd  she  shouldn't 
have.  I'm  sure  that  to  see  her  come  into  a  room,  you 
would  think  half  Boston,  or  all  the  princes  of  the 
blood,  were  her  cousins.  She's  certainly  a  magnifi 
cent  creature." 

Matt  differed  with  his  mother  from  the  ground  up, 
in  all  her  worldly  reasons  for  admiring  Suzette,  but 
her  praises  filled  his  heart  to  overflowing.  Tears 
stood  in  his  eyes,  and  his  voice  trembled  : 

"  She  is  —  she  is  —  angelically  !  " 

"  Well,  not  just  that  type,  perhaps,"  said  Mrs.  Hil 
ary.  "But  she  is  a  good  girl.  No  one  can  help  re 
specting  her ;  and  I  think  she's  even  more  to  be  re 
spected  for  yielding  to  that  poor  old  maid  sister  of 
hers  about  their  property,  than  for  wishing  to  give  it 
up." 


374  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  Yes/'  Matt  breathed  gratefully. 

"  But  there,  there  is  the  real  skeleton,  Matt !  Su- 
zette  would  grace  the  highest  position.  But  her  father  ! 
What  will  people  say  ?  " 

"  Need  we  mind  that,  mother  ?  " 

"  Not,  perhaps,  so  much,  if  things  had  remained  as 
they  were  —  if  he  had  never  been  heard  from  again. 
But  that  letter  of  his !  And  what  will  he  do  next  ? 
He  may  come  home,  and  offer  to  stand  his  trial !  " 

"I  would  respect  him  for  that !  "  cried  Matt  passion 
ately. 

"  Matt ! " 

"  It  isn't  a  thing  I  should  urge  him  to  do.  He  may 
not  have  the  strength  for  it.  But  if  he  had,  it  would 
be  the  best  thing  he  could  do,  and  I  should  be  glad  to 
stand  by  him !  " 

"  And  drag  us  all  through  the  mire  ?  Surely,  my 
son,  whatever  you  feel  about  your  mother  and  sister, 
you  can't  wish  your  poor  father  to  suffer  anything 
more  on  that  wretch's  account  ?  " 

"  Wish  ?  No.  And  heaven  knows  how  deeply 
anxious  I  am  about  the  effect  my  engagement  may 
have  on  father.  I'm  afraid  it  will  embarrass  him  — 
compromise  him,  even  —  " 

"  As  to  that,  I  can't  say,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary.  "  You 
and  he  ought  to  know  best.  One  thing  is  certain. 
There  won't  be  any  opposition  on  his  part  or  mine,  my 
son,  that  you  won't  see  yourself  is  reasonable  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  am  sure  of  that,  mother !  And  I  can't  tell 
you  how  deeply  I  feel  —  " 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  375 

"  Your  father  appreciates  Suzette  as  fully  as  I  do ; 
but  I  don't  believe  he  could  stand  any  more  Quixotism 
from  you,  Matt,  and  if  you  intend  to  make  your  mar 
riage  a  preliminary  to  getting  your  father-in-law  into 
State's  prison,  you  may  be  very  sure  your  father 
won't  approve  of  your  marriage." 

Matt  laughed  at  the  humor  of  the  proposition,  which 
his  mother  did  not  perceive  so  keenly. 

"  I  don't  intend  that,  exactly." 

"  And  I'm  satisfied,  as  it  is,  he  won't  be  easy  about 
it  till  the  thing  is  hushed  up,  or  dies  out  of  itself,  if 
it's  let  alone." 

"  But  father  can't  let  it  alone  !  "  said  Matt.  "  It's 
his  duty  to  follow  it  up  at  every  opportunity.  I  don't 
want  you  to  deceive  yourself  about  the  matter.  I 
want  you  to  understand  just  how  it  will  be.  I  have 
tried  to  face  it  squarely,  and  I  know  how  it  looks.  I 
shall  try  to  make  Suzette  see  it  as  I  do,  and  I'm  sure 
she  will.  I  don't  think  her  father  is  guiltier  than  a 
great  many  other  people  who  haven't  been  found  out. 
But  he  has  been  found  out,  and  he  ought,  for  the  sake 
of  the  community,  to  be  willing  to  bear  the  penalty 
the  law  inflicts.  That  is  his  only  hope,  his  salvation, 
his  duty.  Father's  duty  is  to  make  him  bear  it 
whether  he's  willing  or  not.  It's  a  much  more  odious 
duty  —  " 

"I  don't  understand  you,  Matt,  saying  your  father's 
part  is  more  odious  than  a  self-confessed  defaulter's." 

"No,  I  don't  say — " 

"  Then  I  think  you'd  better  go  to  your  father,  and 


376  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

reconcile  your  duty  with  his,  if  you  can.  I  wash  my 
hands  of  the  affair.  It  seems  to  me,  though,  that 
you've  quite  lost  your  head.  The  world  will  look 
very  differently,  I  can  assure  you,  at  a  woman  whose 
father  died  in  Canada,  nobody  could  remember  just 
why,  from  what  it  will  on  one  whose  father  was  sent 
to  State's  prison  for  taking  money  that  didn't  belong 
to  him." 

Matt  flung  up  his  arms  ;  "  Oh,  the  world,  the  world ! 
I  won't  let  the  world  enter !  I  will  never  let  Suzette 
face  its  mean  and  cruel  prejudices.  She  will  come 
here  to  the  farm  with  me,  and  we  will  live  down  the 
memory  of  what  she  has  innocently  suffered,  and  we 
will  let  the  world  go  its  way." 

"  And  don't  you  think  the  world  will  follow  you 
here?  Don't  you  suppose  it  is  here,  ready  to  wel 
come  you  home  with  all  those  prejudices  you  hope  you 
can  shun  ?  Every  old  gossip  of  the  neighborhood  will 
point  Suzette  out,  as  the  daughter  of  a  man  who  is 
serving  his  term  in  jail  for  fraud.  The  great  world 
forgets,  but  this  little  world  around  you  here  would 
remember  it  as  long  as  either  of  you  lived.  No  ;  the 
day  you  marry  Suzette  Northwick,  you  must  make  up 
your  mind  to  follow  her  father  into  exile,  or  else  to 
share  his  shame  with  her  at  home." 

"I've  made  up  my  mind  to  share  that  shame  at 
home.  I  never  could  ask  her  to  run  from  it." 

"Then  for  pity's  sake,  let  that  miserable  man  alone, 
wherever  he  is.  Or,  if  you  can  get  at  him,  beg  him 
to  stay  away,  and  keep  still  till  he  dies.  Good-night." 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  377 

Mrs.  Hilary  rose  from  her  own  chair,  and  stooped 
over  Matt,  where  he  had  sunk  in  his,  and  kissed  his 
troubled  forehead.  He  thought  he  had  solved  one 
part  of  his  problem ;  but  her  words  showed  him  that 
he  had  not  rightly  seen  it  in  that  light  of  love  which 
had  really  hid  it  in  dazzling  illusions. 

The  difficulty  had  not  yielded,  at  all,  when  he  met 
his  father  with  it ;  he  thought  it  had  only  grown 
tougher  and  knottier;  and  he  hardly  knew  how  to 
present  it.  His  mother  had  not  only  promised  not  to 
speak  to  his  father  of  the  affair,  she  had  utterly  re 
fused  to  speak  of  it,  and  Matt  instantly  perceived  that 
the  fact  he  announced  was  somehow  far  more  unex 
pected  to  his  father  than  it  had  seemed  to  his  mother. 

But  Hilary  received  it  with  a  patience,  a  tenderness 
for  his  son,  in  all  his  amazement,  that  touched  Matt 
more  keenly  than  any  other  fashion  of  meeting  it 
could  have  done.  He  asked  if  it  were  something  that 
Matt  had  done,  or  had  merely  made  up  his  mind  some 
time  to  do  ;  and  when  Matt  said  it  was  something  he 
had  done,  his  father  was  silent  a  moment.  Then  he 
said,  "  I  shall  have  to  take  some  action  about  it." 

"  How,  action  ?  " 

"  Why,  you  must  see,  my  dear  boy,  that  as  soon  as 
this  thing  becomes  known  —  and  you  wish  it  to  be 
known,  of  course  —  " 

"  Of  course  !  " 

"  It  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  continue  holding 
my  present  relation  to  Northwick." 

"  To  Northwick  ?  " 


378  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

"  As  president  of  the  Board,  I'm  ex  officio  his  en 
emy  and  persecutor.  It  wouldn't  be  right,  it  wouldn't 
be  decent,  for  me  to  continue  that  after  it  was  known 
that  you  were  going  to  marry  his  daughter.  It 
wouldn't  be  possible.  I  must  resign,  I  must  with 
draw  from  the  Board  altogether.  I  haven't  the  stuff 
in  me  to  do  my  official  duty  at  such  a  cost;  so  I'd 
better  give  up  my  office,  and  get  rid  of  my  duty." 

"  That  will  be  a  great  sacrifice  for  you,  father," 
said  Matt. 

"  It  won't  bring  me  to  want,  exactly,  if  you  mean 
money-wise." 

"  I  didn't  mean  money-wise.  But  I  know  you've 
always  enjoyed  the  position  so  much." 

Hilary  laughed  uneasily.  "  "Well,  it  hasn't  been  a 
bed  of  roses  since  we  discovered  Northwick's  obliqui 
ties  — excuse  me !  " 

Matt  blushed.  "  Oh,  I  know  he's  oblique,  as  such 
things  go." 

"  In  fact,"  his  father  resumed,  "  I  shall  be  glad  to 
be  out  of  it,  and  I  don't  think  there'll  be  much  oppo 
sition  to  my  going  out ;  I  know  that  there's  a  growing 
feeling  against  me  in  the  Board.  I  have  tried  to  carry 
water  on  both  shoulders.  I've  made  the  effort  hon 
estly;  but  the  effect  hasn't  been  good.  I  couldn't 
keep  my  heart  out  of  it ;  from  the  very  first  I  pitied 
that  poor  devil's  children  so  that  I  got  him  and  gave 
him  all  the  chance  I  could." 

"  That  was  perfectly  right.  It  was  the  only  busi 
ness-like  —  " 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  379 

"It  wasn't  business-like  to  hope  that  even  if  justice 
were  defeated  he  might  somehow,  anyhow,  escape  the 
consequences  of  his  crime  ;  and  I'm  afraid  this  is  what 
I've  hoped,  in  spite  of  myself,"  said  Hilary. 

This  was  so  probably  true  that  Matt  could  not  help 
his  father  deny  it.  He  could  only  say,  "I  don't  be 
lieve  you've  ever  allowed  that  hope  to  interfere  with 
the  strict  performance  of  your  duty,  at  any  moment." 

"  No ;  but  I've  had  the  hope  ;  and  others  have  had 
the  suspicion  that  I've  had  it.  I've  felt  that ;  and  I'm 
glad  that  it's  coming  to  an  end.  I'm  not  ashamed  of 
your  choice,  Matt ;  I'm  proud  of  it.  The  thing  gave 
me  a  shock  at  first,  because  I  had  to  face  the  part  I 
must  take.  But  she's  all  kinds  of  a  splendid  girl. 
The  Board  knows  what  she  wished  to  do,  and  why 
she  hasn't  done  it.  No  one  can  help  honoring  her. 
And  I  don't  believe  people  will  think  the  less  of  any 
of  us  for  your  wanting  to  marry  her.  But  if  they  do, 
they  may  do  it,  and  be  damned." 

Hilary  shook  himself  together  with  greater  comfort 
than  he  had  yet  felt,  upon  this  conclusion :  but  he 
lapsed  again  after  the  long  hand-pressure  that  he 
exchanged  with  his  son. 

"  We  must  make  it  our  business,  now,  to  see  that 
no  man  loses  anything  by  that —  We  must  get  at 
him  somehow.  Of  course,  they  have  no  more  notion 
where  he  is  than  we  have." 

"  No ;  not  the  least,"  said  Matt.  "  I  think  it's  the 
uncertainty  that's  preying  upon  Miss  North  wick." 

"The  man's  behaving  like  a  confounded  lunatic," 
said  Hilary. 


380  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

The  word  reminded  Matt  of  Putney,  and  he  said, 
"  That's  their  lawyer's  theory  of  him  —  " 

"  Oh,  you've  seen  him,  have  you  ?     Odd  chap." 

"  Yes  ;  I  saw  him  when  I  was  up  there,  after  — 
after  —  at  the  request  of  Suzette.  I  wished  to  talk 
with  him  about  the  scheme  that  Maxwell's  heard 
of  from  a  brother  reporter,"  and  Matt  now  unfolded 
Pinney's  plan  to  his  father,  and  showed  his  letter. 

Hilary  looked  from  it  at  his  son.  "  You  don't  mean 
that  this  is  the  blackguard  who  wrote  that  account  of 
the  defalcation  in  the  Events  ?  " 

"Yes;  the  same  fellow.     But  as  to  blackguard  —  " 

"  Well,  then,  Matt,  I  don't  see  how  we  can  employ 
him.  It  seems  to  me  it  would  be  a  kind  of  insult  to 
those  poor  girls." 

"  I  had  thought  of  that.  I  felt  that.  But  after  all, 
I  don't  think  he  knew  how  much  of  a  blackguard  ho 
was  making  of  himself.  Maxwell  says  he  wouldn't 
know.  And  besides,  we  can't  help  ourselves.  If  he 
doesn't  go  for  us,  he  will  go  for  himself.  We  must 
employ  him.  He's  a  species  of  condottiere ;  we  can 
buy  his  allegiance  with  his  service :  and  we  must 
forego  the  sentimental  objection.  I've  gone  all  over 
it,  and  that's  the  only  conclusion." 

Hilary  fumed  and  rebelled  ;  but  he  saw  that  they 
could  not  help  themselves,  that  they  could  not  do 
better.  He  asked,  "  And  what  did  their  lawyer  think 
of  it  ?  " 

"  He  seemed  to  think  we  had  better  let  it  alone  for 
the  present,  better  wait  and  see  if  Mr.  Northwick 
would  not  try  to  communicate  with  his  family." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  381 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  said  Hilary.  "  If  this 
'fellow  is  such  a  fellow  as  you  say,  I  don't  see  why  we 
shouldn't  make  use  of  him  at  once." 

"  Make  use  of  him  to  get  Mr.  Northwick  back  ?  " 
said  Matt.  "I  think  it  would  be  well  for  him  to 
come  back,  but  voluntarily  —  " 

"  Come  back  ?  "  said  Hilary,  whose  civic  morality 
flew  much  lower  than  this.  "  Nonsense  !  And  stir 
the  whole  filthy  mess  up  in  the  courts?  I  mean, 
make  use  of  this  fellow  to  find  him,  and  enable  us  to 
find  out  just  how  much  money  he  has  left,  and  how 
much  we  have  got  to  supply,  in  order  to  make  up  his 
shortage." 

Matt  now  perceived  the  extent  of  his  father's  pur 
pose,  and  on  its  plane  he  honored  it. 

"  Father,  you're  splendid  !  " 

i 'Stuff!  I'm  in  a  corner.  What  else  is  there  to 
do  ?  What  less  could  we  do  ?  AVhat's  the  money 
for,  if  it  isn't  to  —  "  Hilary  choked  with  the  emotion 
that  filled  him  at  the  sight  of  his  son's  face. 

Every  father  likes  to  have  his  grown-up  son  think 
him  a  good  man  ;  it  is  the  sweetest  thing  that  can  come 
to  him  in  life,  far  sweeter  than  a  daughter's  faith  in 
him ;  for  a  son  knows  whether  his  father  is  good  or 
not.  At  the  bottom  of  his  soul  Hilary  cared  more  for 
his  son's  opinion  than  most  fathers  ;  Matt  was  a  crank, 
but  because  he  was  a  crank,  Hilary  valued  his  judg 
ment  as  something  ideal. 

After  a  moment  he  asked,  "  Can  this  fellow  be  got 
at?" 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

"  Oh,  I  imagine  very  readily." 

"  What  did  Maxwell  say  about  him,  generally  ?  " 

"  Generally,  that  he's  not  at  all  a  bad  kind  of  fellow. 
He's  a  reporter  by  nature,  and  lie's  a  detective  upon 
instinct.  He's  done  some  amateur  detective  work, 
as  many  reporters  do  —  according  to  Maxwell's  ac 
count.  The  two  things  run  together  —  and  he's  very 
shrewd  and  capable  in  his  way.  He's  going  into  it  as 
a  speculation,  and  of  course  he  wants  it  to  be  worth 
his  while.  Maxwell  says  his  expectation  of  newspa 
per  promotion  is  mere  brag ;  they  know  him  too  well 
to  put  him  in  any  position  of  control.  He's  a  mixture, 
like  everybody  else.  He's  devotedly  fond  of  his  wife, 
and  he  wants  to  give  her  and  the  baby  a  change  of 
air  —  " 

"  My  idea,"  Hilary  interrupted,  "  would  be  not  to 
wait  for  the  Social  Science  Convention,  but  to  send 
this  —  " 

"Pinney." 

"  Pinney  at  once.     Will  you  see  him  ?  " 

"  If  you  have  made  up  your  mind." 

"  I've  made  up  my  mind.  But  handle  the  wretch 
carefully,  and  for  heaven's  sake  bind  him  by  all  that's 
sacred  —  if  there's  anything  sacred  to  him  —  not  to 
give  the  matter  away.  Let  him  fix  his  price,  and 
offer  him  a  pension  for  his  widow  afterwards." 


XXI. 

MRS.  HILARY  was  a  large  woman,  of  portly  frame, 
the  prophecy  in  amplitude  of  what  her  son  might  come 
to  be  if  he  did  not  carry  the  activities  of  youth  into  his 
later  life.  She,  for  her  part,  was  long  past  such  activ 
ities  ;  and  yet  she  was  not  a  woman  to  let  the  grass 
grow  upon  any  path  she  had  taken.  She  appointed 
the  afternoon  of  the  day  following  her  talk  with  Matt 
for  leaving  the  farm  and  going  to  the  shore  ;  Louise 
was  to  go  with  her,  and  upon  the  whole  she  judged  it 
best  to  tell  her  why,  when  the  girl  came  to  say  good 
night,  and  to  announce  that  her  packing  was  finished. 

"  But  what  in  the  world  are  we  in  such  a  hurry  for, 
mamma,  all  of  a  sudden  ?  " 

"  We  are  in  a  hurry  because  —  don't  you  really 
know,  Louise  ?  —  because  in  the  crazy  atmosphere  of 
this  house,  one  loses  the  sense  of  —  of  proportion  —  of 
differences." 

"Aren't  you  rather —  Emersonian,  mamma  ?  " 

"  Do  you  think  so,  my  dear  ?  Matt's  queer  notions 
infect  everybody  ;  I  don't  blame  you,  particularly  ;  and 
the  simple  life  he  makes  people  lead  —  by  leading  it 
himself,  more  than  anything  else  —  makes  you  think 
that  you  could  keep  on  living  just  as  simply  if  you 

wished,  everywhere." 
25 


384  THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY. 

"  It's  very  sweet  —  it's  so  restful,"  sighed  the  girl. 
"  It  makes  you  sick  of  dinners  and  ashamed  of  dances." 

"  But  you  must  go  back  to  them  ;  you  must  go  back 
to  the  world  you  belong  to ;  and  you'd  better  not  carry 
any  queer  habits  back  with  you." 

"  You  are  rather  sphinx-like,  mamma !  Such  hab 
its,  for  instance,  as  ?  " 

"As  Mr.  Maxwell."  The  girl's  face  changed;  her 
mother  had  touched  the  quick.  She  went  on,  looking 
steadily  at  her  daughter,  "  You  know  he  wouldn't  do, 
there." 

"No;  he  wouldn't,"  said  Louise,  promptly;  so 
mournfully,  though,  that  her  mother's  heart  relented. 

"  I've  seen  that  you've  become  interested  in  him, 
Louise ;  that  your  fancy  is  excited ;  he  stimulates 
your  curiosity.  I  don't  wonder  at  it !  He  is  very 
interesting.  He  makes  you  feel  his  power  more  than 
any  other  young  man  I've  met.  He  charms  your 
imagination  even  when  he  shocks  your  taste." 

"  Yes  ;  all  that,"  said  Louise,  desolately. 

"  But  he  does  shock  your  taste  ?  " 

"  Sometimes  —  not  always." 

"  Often  enough,  though,  to  make  the  difference  that 
I'm  afraid  you'll  lose  the  sense  of.  Louise,  I  should 
be  very  sorry  if  I  thought  you  were  at  all  —  in  love 
with  that  young  man  !  " 

It  seemed  a  question ;  Louise  let  her  head  droop, 
and  answered  with  another.  "  How  should  I  know  ? 
He  hasn't  asked  me." 

This  vexed  her  mother.     "  Don't  be  trivial,  don't 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  385 

be  childish,  my  dear.  You  don't  need  to  be  asked, 
though  I'm  exceedingly  glad  he  hasn't  asked  you,  for 
now  you  can  get  away  with  a  good  conscience." 

"  I'm  not  sure  yet  that  I  want  to  get  away,"  said 
the  girl,  dreamily. 

"  Yes,  you  are,  my  dear !  "  her  mother  retorted. 
"  You  know  it  wouldn't  do  at  all.  It  isn't  a  question 
of  his  poverty  ;  your  father  has  money  enough  :  it's  a 
question  of  his  social  quality,  and  of  all  those  little 
nothings  that  make  up  the  whole  of  happiness  in  mar 
riage.  He  would  be  different  enough,  being  merely  a 
man  ;  but  being  a  man  born  and  reared  in  as  different 
a  world  from  yours  as  if  it  were  another  planet  —  I 
want  you  to  think  over  all  the  girls  you  know  —  all 
the  people  you  know  —  and  see  how  many  of  them 
have  married  out  of  their  own  set,  their  own  circle  — 
we  might  almost  say,  their  own  family.  There  isn't 
one  !  " 

"  I've  not  said  I  wished  to  marry  him,  mamma." 

"  No.  But  I  wish  you  to  realize  just  what  it  would 
be." 

"  It  would  be  something  rather  distinguished,  if  his 
dreams  came  true,"  Louise  suggested. 

"Well,  of  course,"  Mrs.  Hilary  admitted.  She 
wished  to  be  very,  very  reasonable  ;  very,  very  just ; 
it  was  the  only  thing  with  a  girl  like  Louise  ;  perhaps 
with  any  girl.  "  It  would  be  distinguished,  in  a  way. 
But  it  wouldn't  be  distinguished  in  the  society  way ;  the 
only  way  you've  professed  to  care  for.  I  know  that 
we've  always  been  an  intellectual  community,  and  New- 


386  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

Yorkers,  and  that  kind  of  people,  think,  or  profess  to 
think,  that  we  make  a  great  deal  of  literary  men.  We 
do  invite  them  somewhat,  but  I  pass  whole  seasons 
without  meeting  them;  and  I  don't  know  that  you 
could  say  that  they  are  of  society,  even  when  they 
are  in  it.  If  such  a  man  has  society  connections,  he's 
in  society ;  but  he's  there  on  account  of  his  connec 
tions,  not  on  account  of  his  achievements.  This  young 
man  may  become  very  distinguished,  but  he'll  always 
be  rather  queer ;  and  he  would  put  a  society  girl  at 
odds  with  society.  His  distinction  would  be  public  ;  it 
wouldn't  be  social." 

"Matt  doesn't  think  society  is  worth  minding," 
Louise  said,  casually. 

"  But  you  do,"  returned  her  mother.  "  And  Matt 
says  that  a  man  of  this  young  man's  traditions  might 
mortify  you  before  society  people." 

"Did  Matt  say  that?"  Louise  demanded,  angrily. 
"  I  will  speak  to  Matt  about  that !  I  should  like  to 
know  what  he  means  by  it.  I  should  like  to  hear 
what  he  would  say." 

"  Very  likely  he  would  say  that  the  society  people 
were  not  worth  minding.  You  know  his  nonsense.  If 
you  agree  with  Matt,  I've  nothing  more  to  say, 
Louise ;  not  a  word.  You  can  marry  a  mechanic 
or  a  day-laborer,  in  that  case,  without  loss  of  self- 
respect.  I've  only  been  talking  to  you  on  the  plane 
where  I've  always  understood  you  wished  to  be 
taken.  But  if  you  don't,  then  I  can't  help  it.  You 
must  understand,  though,  and  understand  distinctly, 


TUP:    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  387 

that  you  can't  live  on  two  levels  ;  the  world  won't  let 
you.  Either  you  must  be  in  the  world  and  of  it  en 
tirely  ;  or  you  must  discard  its  criterion s,  and  form 
your  own,  and  hover  about  in  a  sort  of  Bohemian 
limbo  on  its  outskirts ;  or  you  must  give  it  up  al 
together."  Mrs.  Hilary  rose  from  the  lounge  where 
she  had  been  sitting,  and  said,  "  Now  I'm  going  to  bed. 
And  I  want  you  to  think  this  all  carefully  over, 
Louise.  I  don't  blame  you  for  it :  and  I  wish  nothing 
but  your  good  and  happiness  —  yours  and  Matt's,  both. 
But  I  must  say  you've  been  pretty  difficult  children  to 
provide  for.  Do  you  know  what  Matt  has  been 
doing  ?  "  Mrs.  Hilary  had  not  meant  to  speak  of  it, 
but  she  felt  an  invincible  necessity  of  doing  so,  at  last. 

"  Something  new  about  the  Northwicks  ?  " 

"Very  decidedly  —  or  about  one  of  them.  He's 
offered  himself  to  Suzette." 

"  How  grand !  How  perfectly  magnificent !  Then 
she  can  give  up  her  property  at  once,  and  Matt  can 
take  care  of  her  and  Adeline  both." 

"  Or,  your  father  can,  for  him.  Matt  has  not  the 
crime  of  being  a  capitalist  on  his  conscience.  His  idea 
seems  to  be  to  get  Suzette  to  live  here  on  the  farm 
with  him." 

"  I  don't  believe  she'd  be  satisfied  with  that,"  said 
Louise.  "  But  could  she  bear  to  face  the  world  ? 
Wouldn't  she  always  be  thinking  what  people 
thought  ?  " 

u  I  felt  that  I  ought  to  suggest  that  to  Matt ;  though, 
really,  when  it  comes  to  the  practical  side  of  the  mat- 


388  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

ter,  people  wouldn't  care  much  what  her  father  had 
been  —  that  is,  society  people  wouldn't,  as  society 
people.  She  would  have  the  education  and  the  tradi 
tions  of  a  lady,  and  she  would  have  Matt's  name.  It's 
nonsense  to  suppose  there  wouldn't  be  talk ;  but  I 
don't  believe  there  would  be  anything  that  couldn't  be 
lived  down  The  fact  is,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  giving 
her  daughter  the  advantage  of  a  species  of  soliloquy, 
"  I  think  we  ought  to  be  glad  Matt  has  let  us  off  so 
easily.  I've  been  afraid  that  he  would  end  by  marry 
ing  some  farmer's  daughter,  arid  bringing  somebody 
into  the  family  who  would  say  *  Want  to  know,'  and 
*  How  ?  '  and  *  What-say  ?  '  through  her  nose.  Su- 
zette  is  indefinitely  better  than  that,  no  matter  what  her 
father  is.  But  I  must  confess  that  it  was  a  shock 
when  Matt  told  me  they  were  engaged." 

"  Why,  were  you  surprised,  mamma  ?  "  said  Louise. 
"  I  thought  all  along  that  it  would  come  to  that.  I 
knew  in  the  first  place,  Matt's  sympathy  would  be 
roused,  and  you  know  that's  the  strongest  tiling  in 
him.  And  then,  Suzette  is  a  beautiful  girl.  She's 
perfectly  regal ;  and  she's  just  Matt's  opposite,  every 
way ;  and,  of  course  he  would  be  taken  with  her.  I'm 
not  a  bit  surprised.  Why  it's  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world." 

"It  might  be  very  much  worse,"  sighed  Mrs.  Hil 
ary.  "  As  soon  as  he  has  seen  }rour  father,  we  must 
announce  it,  and  face  it  out  with  people.  Fortunately, 
it's  summer ;  and  a  great  many  have  gone  abroad  this 
year." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  389 

Louise  began  to  laugh.  "  Even  Mr.  Northwick  is 
abroad." 

"  Yes,  and  I  hope  he'll  stay  there,"  said  Mrs.  Hil 
ary,  wincing. 

"  It  would  be  quite  like  Matt,  wouldn't  it,  to  have 
him  brought  home  in  chains,  long  enough  to  give  away 
the  bride?" 

"  Louise  !  "  said  her  mother. 

Louise  began  to  cry.  "  Oh,  you  think  it's  nothing," 
she  said  stormily,  "  for  Matt  to  marry  a  girl  whose 
father  ran  away  with  other  people's  money ;  but  a 
man  who  has  fought  his  way  honestly  is  disgraceful, 
no  matter  how  gifted  he  is,  because  he  hasn't  the  tra 
ditions  of  a  society  man  —  " 

"I  won't  condescend  to  answer  your  unjust  non 
sense,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary.  "  I  will  merely 
ask  you  if  you  wish  to  marry  Mr.  Maxwell  —  " 

"  I  will  take  care  of  myself !  "  cried  the  girl,  in 
open,  if  not  definite  rebellion.  She  flung  from  the 
room,  and  ran  upstairs  to  her  chamber,  which  looked 
across  at  the  chamber  where  Maxwell's  light  was 
burning.  She  dropped  on  her  knees  beside  the  win 
dow,  and  bowed  herself  to  the  light,  that  swam  on  her 
tears,  a  golden  mist,  and  pitied  and  entreated  it,  and 
remained  there,  till  the  lamp  was  suddenly  quenched, 
and  the  moon  possessed  itself  of  the  night  in  unbroken 
splendor. 

After  breakfast,  which  she  made  late  the  next 
morning,  she  found  Maxwell  waiting  for  her  on  the 
piazza. 


390  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Are  you  going  over  to  the  camp?  "  she  asked. 

"  I  was,  after  I  had  said  good-by,"  he  answered. 

"  Oh,  we're  not  going  for  several  hours  yet.  We 
shall  take  the  noon  train,  mamma's  decided."  She 
possessed  herself  of  the  cushion,  stuffed  with  spruce 
sprays,  that  lay  on  the  piazza-steps,  and  added,  "  I 
will  go  over  with  you."  They  had  hitherto  made 
some  pretence,  one  to  the  other,  for  being  together 
at  the  camp ;  but  this  morning  neither  feigned  any 
reason  for  it.  Louise  stopped,  when  she  found  he 
was  not  keeping  up  with  her,  and  turned  to  him, 
and  waited  for  him  to  reach  her.  "I  wanted  to  speak 
with  you,  Mr.  Maxwell,  and  I  expect  you  to  be  very 
patient  and  tractable."  She  said  this  very  authorita 
tively  ;  she  ended  by  asking,  "  Will  you  ?  " 

"  It  depends  upon  what  it  is.  I  am  always  docile  if 
I  like  a  thing." 

"  Well,  you  ought  to  like  this." 

u  Oh,  that's  different.     That's  often  infuriating." 

They  went  on,  and  then  paused  at  the  low  stone 
wall  between  the  pasture  and  the  pines. 

"  Before  I  say  it,  you  must  promise  to  take  it  in  the 
right  way,"  she  said. 

He  asked,  teasingly,  "  Why  do  you  think  I 
won't?" 

"  Because  —  because  I  wish  you  to  so  much  !  " 

"And  am  I  such  a  contrary-minded  person  that  you 
can't  trust  me  to  behave  myself,  under  ordinary  prov 
ocation  ?  " 

"  You  may  think  the  provocation  is  extraordinary." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          391 

"  Well,  let's  see."  He  got  himself  over  the  wall, 
and  allowed  her  to  scramble  after  him. 

She  asked  herself  whether,  if  he  had  the  traditions 
of  a  society  man,  he  would  have  done  that ;  but  some 
how,  when  she  looked  at  his  dreamy  face,  rapt  in 
remote  thought  that  beautified  it  from  afar,  she  did  not 
care  for  his  neglect  of  small  attentions.  She  said 
to  herself  that  if  a  woman  could  be  the  companion  of 
his  thoughts  that  would  be  enough;  she  did  not  go 
into  the  details  of  arranging  association  with  thoughts 
so  far  off  as  Maxwell's;  she  did  not  ask  herself 
whether  it  would  be  easy  or  possible.  She  put  the 
cushion  into  the  hammock  for  a  pillow,  but  he  chose 
to  sit  beside  her  on  the  bench  between  the  pine-tree 
boles,  and  the  hammock  swayed  empty  in  the  light 
breeze  that  woke  the  sea-song  of  the  boughs  over 
them. 

"I  don't  know  exactly  how  to  begin,"  she  said, 
after  a  little  silence. 

"  If  you'll  tell  me  what  you  want  to  say,"  he  sug 
gested,  "  I'll  begin  for  you." 

"No,  thank  you,  I'll  begin  myself.  Do  you  remem 
ber,  the  other  day,  when  we  were  here,  and  were  talk 
ing  of  the  difference  in  peoples'  pride?" 

"  Purse  pride  and  poverty  pride  ?  Yes,  I  remember 
that." 

"I  didn't  like  what  you  said,  then ;  or,  rather,  what 
you  were." 

"  Have  you  begun  now  ?     Why  didn't  you  ?  " 

"  Because  —  because  you  seemed  very  worldly." 


392  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  And  do  you  object  to  the  world  ?  I  didn't  make 
it,"  said  Maxwell,  with  his  scornful  smile.  "  But  I've, 
no  criticisms  of  the  Creator  to  offer.  I  take  the  world 
as  I  find  it,  and  as  soon  as  I  get  a  little  stronger,  I'm 
going  back  to  it.  But  I  thought  you  were  rather 
worldly  yourself,  Miss  Hilary." 

"  I  don't  know.  I  don't  believe  I  am,  very.  Don't 
you  think  the  kind  of  life  Matt's  trying  to  live  is 
better  ?  " 

"  Your  brother  is  the  best  man  I  ever  knew  —  " 

"  Oh,  isn't  he  ?     Magnificent !  " 

"  But  life  means  business.  Even  literary  life,  as  I 
understand  it,  means  business." 

"And  can't  you  think  —  can't  you  wish —  for  any 
thing  better  than  the  life  that  means  business  ?  "  she 
asked,  she  almost  entreated.  "  Why  should  you  ever 
wish  to  go  back  to  the  world  ?  If  you  could  live  in 
the  country  away  from  society,  and  all  its  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit,  why  wouldn't  you  rather  lead  a 
literary  life  that  didn't  mean  business?" 

"  But  how  ?  Are  you  proposing  a  public  subscrip 
tion,  or  a  fairy  godmother  ?  "  asked  Maxwell. 

"  No ;  merely  the  golden  age.  I'm  just  supposing 
the  case,"  said  Louise,  "You  were  born  in  Arcady, 
you  know,"  she  added,  with  a  wistful  smile. 

"Arcady  is  a  good  place  to  emigrate  from,"  said 
Maxwell,  with  a  smile  that  was  not  wistful.  "  It's 
like  Vermont,  where  I  was  born,  too.  And  if  I  owned 
the  whole  of  Arcady,  I  should  have  no  use  for  it  till  I 
had  seen  what  the  world  had  to  offer.  Then  I  might 
like  it  for  a  few  months  in  the  summer." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  393 

"  Yes,"  she  sighed  faintly,  and  suddenly  she  rose,  and 
said,  "  I  must  go  and  put  the  finishing  touches.  Good- 
by,  Mr.  Maxwell "  —  she  mechanically  gave  him  her 
hand.  "  I  hope  you  will  soon  be  well  enough  to  get 
back  to  the  world  again." 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said,  in  surprise.  "  But  the  great 
trial  you  were  going  to  make  of  my  patience,  my 
docility  —  " 

She  caught  away  her  hand.  "  Oh,  that  wasn't  any 
thing.  I've  decided  not.  Good-by  !  Don't  go  through 
the  empty  form  of  coming  back  to  the  house  with  me. 
I'll  take  your  adieus  to  mamma."  She  put  the  cush 
ion  into  the  hammock.  "  You  had  better  stay  and  try 
to  get  a  nap,  and  gather  strength  for  the  battle  of  life 
as  fast  as  you  can." 

She  spoke  so  gayly  and  lightly,  that  Maxwell,  with 
all  his  subtlety,  felt  no  other  mood  in  her.  He  did  not 
even  notice,  till  afterwards,  that  she  had  said  nothing 
about  their  meeting  again.  He  got  into  the  hammock, 
and  after  a  while  he  drowsed,  with  a  delicious,  poetic 
sense  of  her  capricious  charm,  as  she  drifted  back  to 
the  farm-house,  over  the  sloping  meadow.  He  vis- 
ioned  a  future  in  which  fame  had  given  him  courage 
to  tell  her  his  love. 

Mrs.  Hilary  knew  from  her  daughter's  face  that 
something  had  happened ;  but  she  knew  also  that  it 
was  not  what  she  dreaded. 


PART  THIRD. 

I. 

MATT  HILARY  saw  Pinney,  and  easily  got  at  the 
truth  of  his  hopes  and  possibilities  concerning  North- 
wick.  He  found  that  the  reporter  really  expected  to 
do  little  more  than  to  find  his  man,  and  make  a  news 
paper  sensation  out  of  his  discovery.  He  was  willing 
to  forego  this  in  the  interest  of  Northwick's  family,  if 
it  could  be  made  worth  his  while ;  he  said  he  had 
always  sympathized  with  his  family,  and  Mrs.  Pinney 
had,  and  he  would  be  glad  to  be  of  use  to  them.  He 
was  so  far  from  conceiving  that  his  account  of  the  de 
falcation  in  the  Events  could  have  been  displeasing  to 
them,  that  he  bore  them  none  of  an  offender's  malice. 
He  referred  to  his  masterpiece  in  proof  of  his  interest, 
and  he  promptly  agreed  with  Matt  as  to  the  terms  of 
his  visit  to  Canada,  and  its  object. 

It  was,  in  fact,  the  more  practicable,  because,  since  he 
had  written  to  Maxwell,  there  had  been  a  change  in 
his  plans  and  expectations.  Pinney  was  disappointed 
in  the  Events'  people  ;  they  had  not  seen  his  proposed 
excursion  as  he  had  ;  the  failure  of  Northwick's  letter, 
as  an  enterprise,  had  dashed  their  interest  in  him  ;  and 
they  did  not  care  to  invest  in  Pinney's  scheme,  even 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  395 

so  far  as  to  guarantee  his  expenses.  This  disgusted 
Pinney,  and  turned  his  thoughts  strongly  toward  an 
other  calling.  It  was  not  altogether  strange  to  him; 
he  had  already  done  some  minor  pieces  of  amateur 
detective  work,  and  acquitted  himself  with  gratifying 
success ;  and  he  had  lately  seen  a  private  detective, 
who  attested  his  appreciation  of  Pinney's  skill  by 
offering  him  a  partnership.  His  wife  was  not  in  favor 
of  his  undertaking  the  work,  though  she  could  not  deny 
that  he  had  some  distinct  qualification  for  it.  The  air 
of  confidence  which  he  diffused  about  him  uncon 
sciously,  and  which  often  served  him  so  well  in  news 
paper  life,  was  in  itself  the  most  valuable  property 
that  a  detective  could  have.  She  said  this,  and  she 
did  not  object  to  the  profession  itself,  except  for  the 
dangers  that  she  believed  it  involved.  She  did  not 
wish  Pinney  to  incur  these,  and  she  would  not  be 
lauo-hed  out  of  her  fears  when  he  told  her  that  there 

£2 

were  lines  of  detective  work  that  were  not  half  so 
dangerous,  in  the  long  run,  as  that  of  a  reporter  sub 
ject  to  assignment.  She  only  answered  that  she  would 
much  rather  he  kept  along  on  the  newspaper.  But 
this  offer  to  look  up  North  wick  in  behalf  of  his  family, 
was  a  different  affair.  That  would  give  them  a  chance 
for  their  outing  in  Canada,  and  pay  them  better  than 
any  newspaper  enterprise.  They  agreed  to  this,  and 
upon  how  much  good  it  would  do  the  baby,  and  they 
imagined  how  Mrs.  Pinney  should  stay  quietly  at 
Quebec,  wrhile  Pinney  went  about,  looking  up  his 
man,  if  that  was  necessary. 


396  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  And  then,"  he  said,  "  if  I  find  him,  and  all  goes 
well,  and  I  can  get  him  to  come  home  with  me  by 
moral  suasion,  I  can  butter  my  bread  on  both  sides. 
There's  a  reward  out  for  him  ;  and  I  guess  I  will  just 
qualify  as  a  detective  before  we  start,  so  as  to  be  pre 
pared  for  emergencies  —  " 

"  Lorenzo  Pinney !  "  screamed  his  wife.  "  Don't 
you  think  of  such  a  wicked  thing!  So  dishonorable !  " 

v  c5 

"  How  wicked  ?  How  dishonorable  ?  "  demanded 
Pinney. 

"  I'm  ashamed  to  have  to  tell  you,  if  you  don't  see ; 
and  I  won't.  But  if  you  go  as  a  detective,  go  as  a  de 
tective  ;  and  if  you  go  as  their  friend,  to  help  them 
and  serve  them,  then  go  that  way.  But  don't  you  try 
to  carry  water  on  both  shoulders.  If  you  do,  I  won't 
stir  a  step  with  you ;  so  there  !  " 

"  Ah  !  "  said  Pinney,  "  I  understand.  I  didn't  catch 
on,  at  first.  Well,  you  needn't  be  afraid  of  my  mix 
ing  drinks.  I'll  just  use  the  old  fellow  for  practice. 
Very  likely  he  may  lead  to  something  else  in  the 
defaulter  line.  You  won't  object  to  that  ?  " 

"No;  I  won't  object  to  that." 

They  had  the  light  preparations  of  young  house 
keepers  to  make,  and  they  were  off  to  the  field  of 
Pinney's  work  in  a  very  few  days  after  he  had  seen 
Matty  and  told  him  that  he  would  talk  it  over  with  his 
wife.  At  Quebec  he  found  board  for  his  family  at  the 
same  hotel  where  Northwick  had  stopped  in  the  winter, 
but  it  had  kept  no  recognizable  trace  of  him  in  the 
name  of  Warwick  on  its  register,  Pinney  passed  a 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  397 

week  of  search  in  the  city,  where  he  had  to  carry  on 
his  investigations  with  an  eye  not  only  to  Northwick's 
discovery,  but  to  his  concealment  as  well.  If  he  could 
find  him  he  must  hide  him  from  the  pursuit  of  others, 
and  he  went  about  his  work  in  the  journalistic  rather 
than  the  legal  way.  He  had  not  wholly  "  severed  his 
connection,"  as  the  newspaper  phrase  is,  with  the 
Events.  He  had  a  fast  and  loose  relation  with  it, 
pending  a  closer  tie  with  his  friend,  the  detective, 
which  authorized  him  to  keep  its  name  on  his  card ; 
and  he  was  soon  friends  with  all  the  gentlemen  of  the 
local  press.  They  did  not  understand,  in  their  old- 
fashioned,  quiet  ideal  of  newspaper  work,  the  vigor 
with  which  Pinney  proposed  to  enjoy  the  leisure  of 
his  vacation  in  exploiting  all  the  journalistic  material 
relating  to  the  financial  exiles  resident  in  their  city. 
But  they  had  a  sort  of  local  pride  in  their  presence, 
and  with  their  help  Pinney  came  to  know  all  that  was 
to  be  known  of  them.  The  colony  was  not  large,  but 
it  had  its  differences,  its  distinctions,  which  the  citizens 
were  very  well  aware  of.  There  are  defaulters  and 
defaulters,  and  the  blame  is  not  in  all  cases  the  same, 
nor  the  breeding  of  the  offenders.  Pinney  learned 
that  there  were  defaulters  who  were  in  society,  and 
not  merely  because  they  were  defaulters  for  large 
sums  and  were  of  good  social  standing  at  home,  but 
because  there  were  circumstances  that  attenuated  their 
offence  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  of  their  city  of 
refuge ;  they  judged  them  by  their  known  intentions 
and  their  exigencies,  as  the  justice  they  had  fled  from 


398  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

could  not  judge  them.  There  were  other  defaulters  of 
a  different  type  and  condition,  whose  status  followed 
them :  embezzlers  who  had  deliberately  planned  their 
misdeeds,  and  who  had  fallen  from  no  domestic  dignity 
in  their  exclusion  from  respectable  association  abroad. 
These  Pinney  saw  in  their  walks  about  the  town  ;  and 
he  was  not  too  proud,  for  the  purposes  of  art,  to  make 
their  acquaintance,  and  to  study  in  their  vacancy  and 
solitude  the  dulness  and  weariness  of  exile.  They 
did  not  consort  together,  but  held  aloof  from  one  an 
other,  and  professed  to  be  ignorant  each  of  the  affairs 
of  the  rest.  Pinney  sympathized  in  tone  if  not  in 
sentiment  with  them,  but  he  did  not  lure  them  to  the 
confidence  he  so  often  enjoyed ;  they  proved  to  be 
men  of  reticent  temper ;  when  frankly  invited  to  speak 
of  their  history  and  their  hopes  in  the  interest  of  the 
reputations  they  had  left  behind  them,  they  said  they 
had  no  statement  to  make. 

It  was  not  from  them  that  Pinney  could  hope  to 
learn  anything  of  the  man  he  was  seeking  ;  Northwick 
was  not  of  their  order,  morally  or  socially,  and  from 
the  polite  circles  where  the  more  elect  of  the  exiles 
moved,  Pinney  was  himself  excluded  by  the  habits  of 
his  life  and  by  the  choice  of  the  people  who  formed 
those  circles.  This  seemed  to  Pinney  rather  comical, 
and  it  might  have  led  him  to  say  some  satirical  things 
of  the  local  society,  if  it  had  been  in  him  to  say  bitter 
things  at  all.  As  it  was,  it  amused  his  inexhaustible 
amiability  that  an  honest  man  like  himself  should  not 
be  admitted  to  the  company  of  even  the  swellest  de- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  399 

faulters  when  he  was  willing  to  seek  it.  He  regretted 
that  it  should  be  so,  mainly  because  Northwick  could 
have  been  heard  of  among  them,  if  at  all ;  and  when 
all  his  other  efforts  to  trace  him  at  Quebec  failed,  he 
did  not  linger  there.  In  fact  he  had  not  expected  to 
find  him  there,  but  he  had  begun  his  search  at  that 
point,  because  he  must  stop  there  on  his  way  to  Rim- 
ouski,  where  Northwick's  letter  to  the  Events  was 
posted.  This  postmark  was  the  only  real  clue  he  had; 
but  he  left  no  stone  unturned  at  Quebec,  lest  North- 
wick  should  be  under  it.  By  the  time  he  came  to  the 
end  of  his  endeavors,  Mrs.  Pinney  and  the  baby  were 
on  such  friendly  terms  with  the  landlady  of  the  hotel 
where  they  were  staying,  that  Pinney  felt  as  easy  at 
parting  from  them  as  he  could  ever  hope  to  feel.  His 
soft  heart  of  husband  and  father  was  torn  at  leaving 
them  behind  ;  but  he  did  not  think  it  well  to  take 
them  with  him,  not  knowing  what  Rimouski  might  be 
like,  or  how  long  he  might  be  kept  remote  from  an 
English-speaking,  or  English-practising,  doctor.  He 
got  a  passage  down  the  river  on  one  of  the  steamers 
for  Liverpool ;  and  with  many  vows,  in  compliance 
with  his  wife's  charges,  that  he  would  not  let  the  ves 
sel  by  any  chance  carry  him  on  to  Europe,  he  rent 
himself  away.  She  wagged  the  baby's  hand  at  him 
from  the  window  where  she  stood  to  watch  him  getting 
into  the  calash,  and  the  vision  of  her  there  shone  in 
his  tears,  as  the  calash  dashed  wildly  down  Mountain 
Hill  Street,  and  whirled  him  through  the  Lower  Town 

on  to  the  steamer's  landing.     He  went  to  his    state- 
26 


400  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

room  as  soon  as  lie  got  aboard,  that  lie  might  give  free 
course  to  his  heartache,  and  form  resolutions  to  be 
morally  worthy  of  getting  back  alive  to  them,  and  of 
finding  them  well.  He  would,  if  he  could,  have  given 
up  his  whole  enterprise ;  and  he  was  only  supported 
in  it  by  remembering  what  she  had  said  in  praise  of 
its  object.  She  had  said  that  if  he  could  be  the  means 
of  finding  their  father  for  those  two  poor  women,  she 
should  think  it  the  greatest  thing  that  ever  was  ;  and 
more  to  be  glad  of  than  if  he  could  restore  him  to 
his  creditors.  Piiiney  had  laughed  at  this  womanish 
view  of  it ;  he  had  said  that  in  either  case  it  would  be 
business,  and  nothing  else  ;  but  now  his  heart  warmed 
with  acceptance  of  it  as  the  only  right  view.  He 
pledged  himself  to  it  in  anticipative  requital  of  the 
Providence  that  was  to  bring  them  all  together  again, 
alive  and  well;  good  as  he  had  felt  himself  to  be, 
when  he  thought  of  the  love  in  which  he  and  his  wife 
were  bound,  he  had  never  experienced  so  deep  and 
thorough  a  sense  of  desert  as  in  this  moment.  He 
must  succeed,  if  only  to  crown  so  meritorious  a  mar 
riage  with  the  glory  of  success  and  found  it  in  lasting 
prosperity. 


II. 

THESE  emotions  still  filled  Pinney  to  the  throat 
when  at  last  he  left  his  cabin  and  went  forward  to 
the  smoking-room,  where  he  found  a  number  of  vet 
eran  voyagers  enjoying  their  cigars  over  the  cards 
which  they  had  already  drawn  against  the  tedium  of 
the  ocean  passage.  Some  were  not  playing,  but 
merely  smoking  and  talking,  with  glasses  of  clear, 
pale  straw-colored  liquid  before  them.  In  a  group  of 
these  the  principal  speaker  seemed  to  be  an  Ameri 
can  ;  the  two  men  who  chorussed  him  were  Cana 
dians ;  they  laughed  and  applauded  with  enjoyment 
of  what  was  national  as  well  as  what  was  individual 
in  his  talk. 

"  Well,  I  never  saw  a  man  as  mad  as  old  Oiseau 
when  he  told  about  that  fellow,  and  how  he  tried  to 
start  him  out  every  day  to  visit  his  soap-mine  in  the 
'ill,  as  he  called  it,  and  how  the  fellow  would  slip  out 
of  it,  day  after  day,  week  after  week,  till  at  last 
Oiseau  got  tired,  and  gave  him  the  bounce  when  the 
first  boat  came  up  in  the  spring.  He  tried  to  make 
him  believe  it  would  be  good  for  his  health,  to  go  out 
prospecting  with  him,  let  alone  making  his  everlast 
ing  fortune  ;  but  it  was  no  good ;  and  all  the  time 
Oiseau  was  afraid  he  would  fall  into  my  hands  and 


402  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

invest  with  me.  '  I  make  you  a  present  of  'im,  Mr. 
Markham,'  says  lie.  '  I  'ave  no  more  use  for  him,  if 
you  find  him.'  " 

One  of  the  Canadians  said,  "I  don't  suppose  he 
really  had  anything  to  invest." 

u  Why,  yes,  that  was  the  curious  thing  about  it ;  he 
had  a  belt  full  of  thousand-dollar  bills  round  him. 
They  found  it  when  he  was  sick ;  and  old  Oiseau 
was  so  afraid  that  something  would  happen  to  him, 
and  he  would  be  suspected  of  it,  that  he  nursed  him 
like  a  brother  till  he  got  well,  and  as  soon  as  he  was 
able  to  get  away  he  bounced  him." 

"And  what  do  you  suppose  was  the  matter  with 
him,  that  he  wouldn't  even  go  to  look  at  Oiseau's 
soap-mine  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  the  American,  closing  his  eyes  for  the 
better  enjoyment  of  the  analysis,  and  giving  a  long, 
slow  pull  at  his  cigar,  "  there  might  have  been  any  one 
of  several  things.  My  idea  is  that  he  was  a  defaulter, 
and  the  thousand-dollar  bills  —  there  were  forty  or 
fifty  of  them,  Oiseau  says  —  were  part  of  the  money 
he  got  away  with.  Then,  very  likely  he  had  no  faith 
in  Oiseau  —  knew  it  was  probably  a  soap-mine,  and 
was  just  putting  him  off  till  he  could  get  away  him 
self.  Or,  maybe  his  fever  left  him  a  little  cracked, 
and  he  didn't  know  exactly  what  he  was  about.  Then, 
again,  if  my  theory  of  what  the  man  was  is  true,  I 
think  that  kind  of  fellow  gets  a  twist  simply  from 
what  he's  done.  A  good  many  of  them  must  bring 
money  away  with  them,  and  there  are  business 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  403 

openings    everywhere;    but  you  never  hear  of   their 
going  into  anything  over  here." 

"  That  is  odd,"  said  the  Canadian. 

"  Or  would  be  if  it  were  not  so  common.  It's  the 
rule  here,  and  I  don't  know  an  exception.  The  de 
faulter  never  does  anything  with  his  money,  except 
live  on  it.  Meigs,  who  built  those  railroads  on  the 
Andes,  is  the  only  one  who  ever  showed  enterprise ; 
and  I  never  understood  that  it  was  a  private  enter 
prise  with  him.  Anyway,  the  American  defaulter 
who  goes  to  Canada  never  makes  any  effort  to  grow 
up  with  the  country.  He  simply  rests  on  his  laurels, 
or  else  employs  his  little  savings  to  negotiate  a  safe 
return.  No,  sir ;  there's  something  in  defalcation  that 
saps  a  man's  business  energies,  and  I  don't  suppose 
that  old  fellow  would  have  been  able  to  invest  in 
Oiseau's  gold  mine  if  it  had  opened  at  his  feet,  and 
he  could  have  seen  the  sovereigns  ready  coined  in  it. 
He  just  couldn't.  I  can  understand  that  state  of  mind, 
though  I  don't  pretend  to  respect  it.  I  can  imagine 
just  how  the  man  trembled  to  go  into  some  specula 
tion,  and  didn't  dare  to.  Must  have  been  an  old 
hand  at  it,  too.  But  it  seems  as  if  the  money  he 
steals  becomes  sacred  to  a  man  when  he  gets  away 
with  it,  and  he  can't  risk  it." 

"  I  rather  think  you  could  have  overcome  his  scru 
ples,  Markham,  if  you  could  have  got  at  him,"  said 
the  Canadian. 

"  Perhaps,"  Markham  assented.  "  But  I  guess  I 
can  do  better  with  our  stock  in  England." 


404  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

Pinney  had  let  his  cigar  go  out,  in  his  excitement. 
He  asked  Markham  for  a  light,  though  there  were 
plenty  of  matches,  and  Markham  accepted  the  request 
as  an  overture  to  his  acquaintance. 

"  Brother  Yank  ?  "  he  suggested. 

"  Boston." 

"  Going  over  ?  " 

"Only  to  Rimouski.  You  don't  happen  to  know 
the  name  of  that  defaulter,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No  ;  I  don't,"  said  Markham. 

"  I  had  an  idea  I  knew  who  it  was,"  said  Pinney. 

Markham  looked  sharply  at  him.  "  After  some 
body  in  Rimouski  ?  " 

"  Well,  not  just  in  that  sense,  exactly,  if  you  mean 
as  a  detective.  But  I'm  a  newspaper  man,  and  this 
is  my  holiday,  and  I'm  working  up  a  little  article  about 
our  financiers  in  exile  while  I'm  resting.  My  name's 
Pinney." 

"  Markham  can  fill  you  up  with  the  latest  facts," 
said  the  Canadian,  going  out;  "and  he's  got  a  gold 
mine  that  beats  Oiseau's  hollow.  But  don't  trust  him 
too  far.  I  know  him ;  he's  a  partner  of  mine." 

"  That  accounts  for  me,"  said  Markham,  with  the 
tolerant  light  of  a  much-joked  joker  in  his  eyes. 
With  Pinney  alone  he  ceased  to  talk  the  American 
which  seemed  to  please  his  Canadian  friend,  and  was 
willing  soberly  to  tell  all  he  knew  about  Oiseau's  cap 
italist,  whom  he  merely  conjectured  to  be  a  defaulter. 
He  said  the  man  called  himself  Warwick,  and  pro 
fessed  to  be  from  Chicago  ;  and  then  Pinney  recalled 


THE    QUALITY    OP    MERCY.  405 

the  name  and  address  in  the  register  of  h'is  Quebec 
hotel,  and  the  date,  which  was  about  that  of  North- 
wick's  escape.  "  But  I  never  dreamt  of  his  using  half 
of  his  real  name,"  and  he  told  Markham  what  the  real 
name  was ;  and  then  he  thought  it  safe  to  trust  him 
with  the  nature  of  his  special  mission  concerning 
North  wick. 

"  Is  there  any  place  on  board  where  a  man  could 
go  and  kick  himself  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Do  it  here  as  well  as  anywhere,"  said  Markham, 
breaking  his  cigar-ash  off.  But  Pinney's  alluring  con 
fidence,  and  his  simple-hearted  acknowledgment  of 
his  lack  of  perspicacity  had  told  upon  him ;  he  felt  the 
fascinating  need  of  helping  Pinney,  which  Pinney  was 
able  to  inspire  in  those  who  respected  him  least,  and 
he  said,  "  There  was  a  priest  who  knew  this  man  when 
he  was  at  Haha  Bay,  and  I  believe  he  has  a  parish 
now  —  yes,  he  has !  I  remember  Oiseau  told  me  — at 
Rimouski.  You'd  better  look  him  up." 

"  Look  him  up !  "  said  Pinney,  in  a  frenzy.  u  I'll 
live  with  him  before  I'm  in  Rimouski  twenty  seconds." 

He  had  no  trouble  in  finding  Pere  iStienne,  but 
after  the  first  hopeful  encounter  with  the  sunny  sur 
face  sweetness  of  the  young  priest,  he  found  him  dis 
posed  to  be  reserved  concerning  the  Mr.  Warwick  he 
had  known  at  Haha  Bay.  It  became  evident  that 
Pere  ^tienne  took  Pinney  for  a  detective ;  and  how 
ever  willing  he  might  have  been  to  save  a  soul  for 
Paradise  in  the  person  of  the  man  whose  unhappiness 
he  had  witnessed,  he  was  clearly  not  eager  to  help 
hunt  a  fugitive  down  for  State's  prison. 


406  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

Even  when  Pinney  declared  his  true  character  and 
mission,  the  priest's  caution  exacted  all  the  proofs  he 
could  give,  and  made  him  submit  his  authorization  to 
an  English-speaking  notary  of  the  priest's  acquaint 
ance.  Then  he  owned  that  he  had  seen  Mr.  Warwick 
since  their  parting  at  Haha  Bay ;  Mr.  Warwick  had 
followed  him  to  Rimouski,  after  several  weeks,  and 
Pere  l^tienne  knew  where  he  was  then  living.  But 
he  was  still  so  anxious  to  respect  the  secrecy  of  a  man 
who  had  trusted  him  as  far  as  North  wick  had,  that  it 
required  all  the  logic  and  all  the  learning  of  the  notary 
to  convince  him  that  Mr.  Warwick,  if  he  were  the 
largest  defaulter  ever  self-banished,  was  in  no  danger 
of  extradition  at  Pinney's  hands.  It  was  with  many 
injunctions,  and  upon  many  promises,  that  at  last  he 
told  Pinney  where  Mr.  Warwick  was  living,  and  fur 
nished  him  with  a  letter  which  was  at  once  warrant 
and  warning  to  the  exile. 

Pinney  took  the  first  train  back  toward  Quebec  ;  he 
left  it  at  St.  Andre,  and  crossed  the  St.  Lawrence  to 
Malbaie.  He  had  no  trouble  there,  in  finding  the  little 
hostelry  where  Mr.  Warwick  lodged.  But  Pinney's 
spirit,  though  not  of  the  greatest  delicacy,  had  become 
sensitized  toward  the  defaulter  through  the  scrupulous 
regard  for  him  shown  by  Pere  £tienne  no  less  than 
by  the  sense  of  holding  almost  a  filial  relation  to  him 
in  virtue  of  his  children's  authorization.  So  his  heart 
smote  him  at  the  ghastly  look  he  got,  when  he  ad 
vanced  upon  Warwick,  where  he  sat  at  the  inn-door, 
in  the  morning  sun,  and  cheerily  addressed  him,  "  Mr. 
Northwick,  I  believe." 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  4.07 

It  was  the  first  time  Northwick  had  heard  his  real 
name  spoken  since  Putney  had  threatened  him  in  the 
station,  the  dark  February  morning  when  he  fled  from 
home.  The  name  he  had  worn  for  the  last  five  months 
was  suddenly  no  part  of  him,  though  till  that  moment 
it  had  seemed  as  much  so  as  the  white  beard  which  he 
had  suffered  to  hide  his  face. 

"  I  don't  expect  you  to  answer  me,"  said  Pinney, 
feeling  the  need  of  taking,  as  well  as  giving  time, 
"  till  you've  looked  at  this  letter,  and  of  course  I've 
no  wish  to  hurry  you.  If  I'm  mistaken,  and  it  isn't 
Mr.  Northwick,  you  won't  open  the  letter." 

He  handed  him,  not  the  letter  which  Pere  ^tienne 
had  given  him,  but  the  letter  Suzette  Northwick  had 
written  her  father  ;  and  Pinney  saw  that  he  recog 
nized  the  hand-writing  of  the  superscription.  He  saw 
the  letter  tremble  in  the  old  man's  hand,  and  heard 
its  crisp  rustle  as  he  clutched  it  to  keep  it  from  fall 
ing  to  the  ground.  He  could  not  bear  the  sight  of 
the  longing  and  the  fears  that  came  into  his  face.  "  No 
hurry  ;  no  hurry,"  he  said,  kindly,  and  turned  away. 


III. 

WHEN  Pinney  carao  back  from  the  little  turn  he 
took,  Northwick  was  still  holding  the  unopened  letter 
in  his  hand.  He  stood  looking  at  it  in  a  kind  of  daze, 
and  he  was  pale,  and  seemed  faint. 

"Why,  Mr.  Northwick,"  said  Pinney,  "  why  don't 
you  read  your  letter  ?  If  it  hadn't  been  yours,  don't 
I  know  that  you'd  have  given  it  back  to  me  at  once  ?  " 

"It  isn't  that,"  said  the  man,  who  was  so  much 
older  and  frailer  than  Pinney  had  expected  to  find 
him.  "  But  —  are  they  well  ?  Is  it  —  bad  news  ?  " 

"  No !"  Pinney  exulted.  "They're  first-rate.  You 
needn't  be  afraid  to  read  the  letter !  "  Pinney's  exul 
tation  came  partly  from  his  certainty  that  it  was  really 
Northwick,  and  partly  from  the  pleasure  he  felt  in 
reassuring  him ;  he  sympathized  with  him  as  a  father. 
His  pleasure  was  not  marred  by  the  fact  that  he  knew 
nothing  of  the  state  of  Northwick's  family,  and  built 
his  assertion  upon  the  probability  that  the  letter  would 
contain  nothing  to  alarm  or  afflict  him.  "  Like  a  glass 
of  water  ?  "  he  suggested,  seeing  Northwick  sit  inert 
and  helpless  on  the  steps  of  the  inn-porch,  appar 
ently  without  the  force  to  break  the  seal  of  the  letter. 
"  Or  a  little  brandy  ?"  Pinney  handed  him  the  neat 
leather-covered  flask  his  wife  had  reproached  him  for 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  409 

buying  when  they  came  away  from  home  ;  she  said  he 
could  not  afford  it;  but  he  was  glad  he  had  got  it, 
now,  and  he  unscrewed  the  stopple  with  pride  in 
handing  it  to  Northwick.  "  You  look  sick." 

"  I  haven't  been  very  well,"  Northwick  admitted', 
and  he  touched  the  bottle  with  his  lips.  It  revived 
him,  and  Pinney  now  saw  that  if  he  would  leave  him 
again,  he  would  open  the  letter.  There  was  little  in 
it  but  the  tender  assurance  Suzette  gave  him  of  their 
love,  and  the  anxiety  of  Adeline  and  herself  to  know 
how  and  where  he  was.  She  told  him  that  he  was 
not  to  feel  troubled  about  them ;  that  they  were  well, 
and  unhappy  only  for  him  ;  but  he  must  not  think 
they  blamed  him,  or  had  ever  done  so.  As  soon  as 
they  were  sure  they  could  reach  him,  she  said,  they 
would  write  to  him  again.  Adeline  wrote  a  few  lines 
with  her  name,  to  say  that  for  some  days  past  she 
had  not  been  quite  well ;  but  that  she  was  better 
and  had  nothing  to  wish  for  but  to  hear  from  him. 

O 

When  Pinney  came  back  a  second  time,  he  found 
Northwick  with  the  letter  open  in  his  hand. 

"  Well,  sir,"  he  said,  with  the  easy  respectfulness 
toward  Northwick  that  had  been  replacing,  ever  since 
he  talked  with  Matt  Hilary,  the  hail-fellow  manner  he 
used  with  most  men,  and  that  had  now  fully  estab 
lished  itself,  "  You've  got  some  noble  scenery  about 
here."  He  meant  to  compliment  Northwick  on  the 
beauty  of  the  landscape,  as  people  ascribe  merit  to  the 
inhabitants  of  a  flourishing  city. 

Northwick,  by  his  silence,  neither  accepted  nor  dis. 


410  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

claimed  the  credit  of  the  local  picturesqueness  ;  and 
Pinney  ventured  to  add,  "  But  you  seem  to  take  it 
out  in  nature,  Mr.  Northwick.  The  place  is  pretty 
quiet,  sir." 

Northwick  paid  no  heed  to  this  observation,  either ; 
but  after  sitting  mute  so  long  that  Pinney  began  to 
doubt  whether  he  was  ever  going  to  speak  at  all,  he 
began  to  ask  some  guarded  and  chary  questions  as  to 
how  Pinney  had  happened  to  find  him.  Pinney  had 
no  unwillingness  to  tell,  and  now  he  gave  him  the 
letter  of  Pere  ^tienne,  with  a  eulogy  of  the  priest's 
regard  for  Northwick's  interest  and  safety.  He  told 
him  how  Markham's  talk  had  caught  his  attention, 
and  Northwick  tacitly  recognized  the  speculator.  But 
when  Pinney  explained  that  it  was  the  postmark  on 
his  letter  to  the  Events  that  gave  him  the  notion  of 
going  to  Blmouski,  he  could  see  that  Northwick  was 
curious  to  know  the  effect  of  that  letter  with  the  pub 
lic.  At  first  he  thought  he  would  let  him  ask ;  but  he 
perceived  that  this  would  be  impossible  for  Northwick, 
and  he  decided  to  say,  "  That  letter  was  a  great  sen 
sation,  Mr.  Northwick."  The  satisfaction  that  lighted 
up  Northwick's  eyes  caused  Pinney  to  add,  "  I  guess 
it  set  a  good  many  people  thinking  about  you  in  a  dif 
ferent  way.  It  showed  that  there  was  something  to 
be  said  on  both  sides,  and  I  believe  it  made  friends  for 
you,  sir.  Yes,  sir."  Pinney  had  never  believed  this 
till  the  moment  he  spoke,  but  then  it  seemed  so  prob 
able  he  had  that  he  easily  affirmed  it.  "  I  don't  be 
lieve,  Mr.  Northwick,"  he  went  on,  "  but  what  this 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.          411 

trouble  could  be  patched  up,  somehow,  so  that  you 
could  come  back,  if  you  wanted  to,  give  'em  time  to 
think  it  over  a  little.'' 

As  soon  as  he  said  this,  the  poison  of  that  ulterior 
purpose  which  his  wife  had  forbidden  him,  began  to 
work  in  Pinney's  soul.  He  could  not  help  feeling 
what  a  grand  thing  it  would  be  if  he  could  go  back 
with  Northwick  in  his  train,  and  deliver  him  over,  a 
captive  of  moral  suasion,  to  his  country's  courts. 
Whatever  the  result  was,  whether  the  conviction  or 
the  acquittal  of  Northwick,  the  process  would  be  the 
making  of  Pinney.  It  would  carry  him  to  such  a 
height  in  the  esteem  of  those  who  knew  him,  that  he 
could  choose  either  career,  and  whether  as  a  reporter 
or  a  detective,  it  would  give  his  future  the  distinction 
of  one  of  the  most  brilliant  pieces  of  work  in  both 
sorts.  Pinney  tried  his  best  to  counteract  the  influ 
ence  of  these  ideas  by  remembering  his  promises  to  his 
wife  ;  but  it  was  difficult  to  recall  his  promises  with 
accuracy  in  his  wife's  absence ;  and  he  probably  owed 
his  safety  in  this  matter  more  to  North  wick's  tem 
perament  than  to  any  virtue  of  his  own. 

"  I  think  I  understand  how  that  would  be,"  said  the 
defaulter  coldly  ;  and  he  began  very  cautiously  to  ask 
Pinney  the  precise  effect  of  his  letter  as  Pinney  had 
gathered  it  from  print  and  hearsay.  It  was  not  in 
Pinney's  nature  to  give  any  but  a  rose-colored  and 
illusory  report  of  this  ;  but  he  felt  that  Northwick  was 
sizing  him  up  while  he  listened,  and  knew  just  when 
and  how  much  he  was  lying.  This  heightened  Pin- 


412  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

ncy's  respect  for  him,  and  apparently  his  divination  of 
Pinney's  character  had  nothing  to  do  with  Northwick's 
feeling  toward  him.  So  far  as  Pinney  could  make 
out  it  was  friendly  enough,  and  as  their  talk  went  on 
he  imagined  a  growing  trustfulness  in  it.  Northwick 
kept  his  inferences  and  conclusions  to  himself.  His 
natural  reticence  had  been  intensified  by  the  solitude 
of  his  exile ;  it  stopped  him  short  of  any  expression 
concerning  Pinney's  answers ;  and  Pinney  had  to  con 
struct  Northwick's  opinions  from  his  questions.  His 
own  cunning  was  restlessly  at  work  exploring 
Northwick's  motives  in  each  of  these,  and  it  was  not 
at  fault  in  the  belief  it  brought  him  that  Northwick 
clearly  understood  the  situation  at  home.  He  knew 
that  the  sensation  of  his  offence  and  flight  were  past, 
and  that  so  far  as  any  public  impulse  to  punish  him 
was  concerned,  he  might  safely  go  back.  But  he 
knew  that  the  involuntary  machinery  of  the  law  must 
begin  to  operate  upon  him  as  soon  as  he  came  within 
its  reach ;  and  he  could  not  learn  from  Pinney  that 
anything  had  been  done  to  block  its  wheels.  The  let 
ter  from  his  daughters  threw  no  light  upon  this  point ; 
it  was  an  appeal  for  some  sign  of  life  and  love  from 
him ;  nothing  more.  They,  or  the  friends  who  were 
advising  them,  had  not  thought  it  best  to  tell  him 
more  than  that  they  were  well,  and  anxious  to  hear 
from  him;  and  Pinney  really  knew  nothing  more 
about  them.  He  had  not  been  asked  to  Hatboro'  to 
see  them  before  he  started,  and  with  all  the  will  he 
had  to  invent  comfortable  and  attractive  circum- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          413 

stances  for  them,  he  was  at  a  disadvantage  for  want  of 
material.  The  most  that  he  could  conjecture  was  that 
Mr.  Hilary's  family  had  not  broken  off  their  friendly 
relations  with  them.  He  had  heard  old  Hilary  criti 
cised  for  it,  and  he  told  Northwick  so. 

"  I  guess  he's  been  standing  by  you,  Mr.  North- 
wick,  as  far  as  he  consistently  could,"  he  said ;  and 
Northwick  ventured  to  reply  that  he  expected  that. 
"  It  was  young  Hilary  who  brought  me  the  letter, 
arid  talked  the  whole  thing  up  with  me,"  Pinney 
added. 

'  Northwick  had  apparently  not  expected  this  ;  but 
he  let  no  more  than  the  fact  appear.  He  kept  silent 
for  a  time  ;  then  he  said,  "  And  you  don't  know  any 
thing  about  the  way  they're  living  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't,"  said  Pinney,  with  final  candor. 
"  But  I  should  say  they  were  living  along  there  about 
as  usual.  Mr.  Hilary  didn't  say  but  what  they  were. 
I  guess  you  haven't  got  any  cause  to  be  uneasy  on 
that  score.  My  idea  is,  Mr  Northwick,  that  they 
wanted  to  leave  you  just  as  free  as  they  could  about 
themselves.  They  wanted  to  find  out  your  where 
abouts  in  the  land  of  the  living,  first  of  all.  You 
know  that  till  that  letter  of  yours  came  out,  there 
were  a  good  many  that  thought  you  were  killed  in 
that  accident  at  Well  water,  the  day  you  left  home." 

Northwick  started.  "  What  accident  ?  What  do 
you  mean  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"  Why,  didn't  you  know  about  it?  Didn't  you  see 
the  accounts  ?  They  had  a  name  like  yours  amongst 


414  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

the  missing,  and  people  who  thought  you  were  not  in 
it,  said  it  was  a  little  job  you  had  put  up.  There  was 
a  despatch  engaging  a  Pullman  seat  signed,  T.  W. 
Northwick  —  " 

"  Ah !  I  knew  it !  "  said  Northwick.  "  I  knew 
that  I  must  have  signed  my  real  name !  " 

"  "Well,  of  course,"  said  Pinney,  soothingly,  "  a  man 
is  apt  to  do  that,  when  lie  first  takes  another.  It's 
natural." 

"  I  never  heard  of  the  accident.  I  saw  no  papers 
for  months.  I  wouldn't;  and  then  I  was  sick  — 
They  must  have  believed  I  was  dead !  " 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  Pinney,  "  I  don't  know  that  that 
follows.  My  wife  and  myself  talked  that  up  a  good 
deal  at  the  time,  and  we  concluded  that  it  was  about 
an  even  thing.  You  see  it's  pretty  hard  to  believe 
that  a  friend  is  dead,  even  when  you've  seen  him  die ; 
and  I  don't  understand  how  people  that  lose  friends 
at  a  distance  can  ever  quite  realize  that  they're  gone. 
I  guess  that  even  if  the  ladies  went  upon  the  theory 
of  the  accident,  there  was  always  a  kind  of  a  merciful 
uncertainty  about  it,  and  that  was  my  wife's  notion, 
too.  But  that's  neither  here  nor  there,  now,  Mr. 
Northwick.  Here  you  are,  alive  and  well,  in  spite  of 
all  theories  to  the  contrary  —  though  they  must  have 
been  pretty  well  exploded  by  your  letter  to  the  Events 
—  and  the  question  is  what  answer  are  you  going  to 
let  me  take  back  to  your  family  ?  You  want  to  send 
some  word,  don't  you  ?  My  instructions  were  not  to 
urge  you  at  all,  and  I  won't.  But  if  I  was  in  your 
place,  I  know  what  /should  do." 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  415 

Northwick  did  not  ask  him  what  it  was  he  would  do. 
He  fell  into  a  deep  silence  which  it  seemed  to  Pirmey 
he  would  never  break;  and  his  face  became  such  a 
blank  that  all  Pinney's  subtlety  was  at  fault.  It  is 
doubtful,  indeed,  if  there  was  anything  definite  or 
directed  in  the  mute  misery  of  Northwick's  soul.  It 
was  not  a  sharp  anguish,  such  as  a  finer  soul's  might 
have  been,  but  it  was  a  real  misery,  of  a  measure  and 
a  quality  that  he  had  not  felt  before.  Now  he  real 
ized  how  much  he  must  have  made  his  children  suffer. 
Perhaps  it  wrung  him  the  more  keenly  because  it 
seemed  to  be  an  expression  of  the  divine  displeasure, 
which  he  flattered  himself  he  had  appeased,  and  was 
a  fatal  consequence  of  his  guilt.  It  was  a  terrible 
suggestion  of  the  possibility  that,  after  all,  Providence 
might  not  have  been  a  party  to  the  understanding  be 
tween  them,  and  that  his  good-will  toward  those  he  had 
wronged  had  gone  for  nothing.  He  had  blamed  him 
self  for  not  having  tried  to  retrieve  himself  and  make 
their  losses  good.  It  was  no  small  part  of  his  misery 
now  to  perceive  that  anything  he  might  have  done 
would  have  gone  for  nothing  in  this  one-sided  under 
standing.  He  fetched  a  long,  unconscious  sigh. 

"Why,  it's  all  over,  now,  Mr.  Nortliwick,"  said 
Pinney,  with  a  certain  amusement  at  the  simple- 
heartedness  of  this  sigh,  whose  cause  he  did  not  mis- 
interpret.  "  The  question  is  now  about  your  getting 
back  to  them." 

"  Getting  back  ?  You  know  I  can't  go  back,"  said 
Nortliwick,  with  bitter  despair,  and  an  openness  that 

he  had  not  shown  before. 

27 


416  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

Far  beneath  and  within  the  senses  that  apprehend 
the  obvious  things,  Pirmey  felt  the  unhappy  man  be 
ginning  to  cling  to  him.  He  returned,  joyously,  "  I 
don't  know  about  that.  Now,  see  here,  Mr.  North- 
wick,  you  believe  that  I'm  here  as  your  friend,  don't 
you  ?  That  I  want  to  deal  in  good  faith  with  you  ?  " 
Northwick  hesitated,  and  Pinney  pursued,  "  Your 
daughter's  letter  ought  to  be  a  guaranty  of  that !  " 

"Yes,"  Northwick  admitted,  after  another  hesita 
tion. 

"  "Well,  then,  what  I'm  going  to  say  is  in  your  in 
terest,  and  you've  got  to  believe  that  I  have  some 
authority  for  saying  it.  I  can't  tell  you  just  how 
much,  for  I  don't  know  as  I  know  myself  exactly. 
But  1  think  you  can  get  back  if  you  work  it  right. 
Of  course,  you  can't  get  back  for  nothing.  It's  going 
to  cost  you  something.  It's  going  to  cost  you  all 
you've  brought  with  you," — Pinney  watched  North- 
wick's  impassive  face  for  the  next  change  that  should 
pass  upon  it ;  he  caught  it,  and  added  —  "  and  more. 
But  I  happen  to  know  that  the  balance  will  be  forth 
coming  when  it's  needed.  I  can't  say  how  I  know  it, 
for  I  don't  exactly  know  how  I  know  it.  But  I  do  know 
it;  and  you  know  that  it's  for  you  to  take  the  first 
step.  You  must  say  how  much  money  you  brought 
with  you,  and  where  it  is,  and  how  it  can  be  got  at.  I 
should  think,''  said  Pinney,  with  a  drop  in  his  earnest 
ness,  and  as  if  the  notion  had  just  occurred  to  him, 
"  you  would  want  to  see  that  place  of  yours  again." 

Northwick  gave  a  gasp  in  the  anguish  of  homesick- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  417 

ness  the  words  brought  upon  him.  In  a  flash  of  what 
was  like  a  luminous  pang,  he  saw  it  all  as  it  looked 
the  night  he  left  it  in  the  white  landscape  under  the 
high,  bare  wintry  sky.  "  You  don't  know  what  you're 
talking  about,"  he  said,  with  a  kind  of  severity. 

"  No,"  Pinney  admitted,  "  I  don't  suppose  any  one 
can  begin  to  appreciate  it  as  you  do.  But  I  was  there, 
just  after  you  skipped  —  " 

"  Then  I  was  the  kind  of  man  who  would  skip," 
Northwick  swiftly  reflected  — 

"  And  I  must  say  I  would  take  almost  any  chance 
of  getting  back  to  a  place  like  that.  Why,"  he  said, 
with  an  easy,  caressing  cordiality,  "you  can't  have 
any  idea  how  completely  the  thing's  blown  over.  Why, 
sir,  I'll  bet  you  could  go  back  to  Hatboro'  now,  and  be 
there  twenty-four  hours  before  anybody  would  wake 
up  enough  to  make  trouble  for  you.  Mind,  I  don't 
say  that's  what  we  want  you  to  do.  We  couldn't  make 
terms  for  you  half  as  well,  with  you  on  the  ground. 
We  want  you  to  keep  your  distance  for  the  present, 
and  let  your  friends  wrork  for  you.  Like  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency,"  Pinney  added,  with  a  smile. 
"  Hello  !  Who's  this  ?  " 

A  little  French  maid,  barefooted,  black-eyed,  curly- 
headed,  shyly  approached  Northwick,  and  said,  "  Diner, 
Monsieur." 

"That  means  dinner,"  Northwick  gravely  inter 
preted.  "  I  will  ask  you  to  join  me." 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  I  shall  be  very  glad,"  said  Pinney 
rising  with  him.  They  had  been  sitting  on  the  steps 


418  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY- 

of  a  structure  that  Pinney  now  noticed  was  an  oddity 
among  the  bark-sheathed  cabins  of  the  little  hamlet. 
''  Why,  what's  this  ?  " 

*'  It's  the  studio  of  an  American  painter  who  used  to 
come  here.  He  hasn't  been  here  for  several  years." 

"  I  suppose  you  expect  to  light  out  if  he  comes/' 
Pinney  suggested,  in  the  spirit  of  good  fellowship 
towards  Northwick  now  thoroughly  established  in 
him. 

"He  couldn't  do  me  any  harm,  if  he  wanted  to," 
answered  Northwick,  with  unresentful  dignity. 

"  No,"  Pinney  readily  acquiesced,  "  and  I  presume 
you'd  be  glad  to  hear  a  little  English,  after  all  the 
French  you  have  around." 

"  The  landlord  speaks  a  little  ;  and  the  priest.  He 
is  a  friend  of  Father  £tienne." 

"  Oh,  I  see,"  said  Pinney.  lie  noticed  that  North 
wick  walked  slowly  and  weakly ;  he  ventured  to  put 
his  hand  under  his  elbow,  and  Northwick  did  not 
resent  the  help  offered  him. 

"  I  had  a  very  severe  sickness  during  the  latter  part 
of  the  winter,"  he  explained,  "  and  it  pulled  me  down 
a  good  deal." 

"  At  Rimouski,  I  presume  ?  "  said  Pinney. 

"  No,"  said  Northwick,  briefly. 


IV. 

OVER  the  simple  dinner,  which  Pinney  praised  for 
the  delicacy  of  the  local  lamb,  and  North  wick  ate  of  so 
sparingly,  Northwick  talked  more  freely.  He  told 
Pinney  all  about  his  flight,  and  his  winter  journey 
up  toward  the  northern  verge  of  the  civilized  world. 
The  picturesque  details  of  this  narrative,  and  their 
capability  of  distribution  under  attractive  catch-heads 
almost  maddened  the  reporter's  soul  in  Pinney  with 
longing  to  make  newspaper  material  of  Northwick  on 
the  spot.  But  he  took  his  honor  in  both  hands,  and 
held  fast  to  it ;  only  he  promised  .him  that  if  the  time 
ever  came  when  that  story  could  be  told,  it  should  be 
both  fortune  and  fame  to  him. 

They  sat  long  over  their  dinner.  At  last  Pinney 
pulled  out  his  watch.  u  What  time  did  you  say  the 
boat  for  Quebec  got  along  here  ?  " 

Northwick  had  not  said,  of  course,  but  he  now  told 
Pinney.  He  knew  the  time  well  in  the  homesickness 
which  mounted  to  a  paroxysm  as  that  hour  each  day 
came  and  went. 

"  We  must  get  there  some  time  in  the  night  then," 
said  Pinney,  still  looking  at  his  watch.  "  Then  let's 
understand  each  other  about  this :  Am  I  to  tell  your 
family  where  you  are  ?  Or  what?  Look  here!  "  he 


420  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

broke  off  suddenly,  "  why  don't  you  come  up  to  Quebec 
with  me  ?  You'll  be  just  as  safe  there  as  you  are  here  ; 
you  know  that ;  and  now  that  your  whereabouts  are 
bound  to  be  known  to  your  friends,  you  might  as  well 
be  where  they  can  get  at  you  by  telegraph  in  case  of 
emergency.  Come  !  What  do  you  say  ?  " 

Northwiek  said  simply,  "  Yes,  I  will  go  with  you." 
"  Well,  now  you're  shouting,"  said  Pinney.  "  Can't 
I  help  you  to  put  your  traps  together?  I  want  to  in 
troduce  you  to  my  wife.  She  takes  as  much  interest 
in  this  thing  as  I  do ;  and  she'll  know  how  to  look 
after  you  a  great  deal  better,  —  get  you  to  Quebec  once. 
She's  the  greatest  little  nurse  in  this  world ;  and,  as 
you  say,  you  don't  seem  over  and  above  strong.  I  hope 
you  don't  object  to  children.  We've  got  a  baby,  but 
it's  the  best  baby !  I've  heard  that  child  cry  just  once 
since  it  was  born,  and  that  was  when  it  first  realized 
that  it  was  in  this  vale  of  tears ;  I  believe  we  all  do 
that ;  but  our  baby  finished  up  the  whole  crying-busi 
ness  on  that  occasion." 

With  Pinney  these  statements  led  to  others  until 
he  had  possessed  Northwiek  of  his  whole  autobiogra 
phy.  He  was  in  high  content  with  himself,  and  his 
joy  overflowed  in  all  manner  of  affectionate  services  to 
Northwiek,  which  Northwiek  accepted  as  the  mourner 
entrusts  his  helplessness  to  the  ghastly  kindness  of  the 
undertaker,  and  finds  in  it  a  sort  of  human  sympathy. 
If  Northwiek  had  been  his  own  father,  Pinney  could 
not  have  looked  after  him  with  tenderer  care,  in 
putting  his  things  together  for  him,  and  getting  on 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  421 

board  the  boat,  and  making  interest  with  the  clerk 
for  the  best  stateroom.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  de 
scribe  him  as  an  American  financier;  he  enjoyed  say 
ing  that  he  was  in  Canada  for  his  health ;  and  that  he 
must  have  an  extra  room.  The  clerk  gave  up  the 
captain's,  as  all  the  others  were  taken,  and  Pinney 
occupied  it  with  Northwick.  It  was  larger  and 
pleasanter  than  the  other  rooms,  and  after  Pinney  got 
Northwick  to  bed,  he  sat  beside  him  and  talked. 
Northwick  said  that  he  slept  badly,  and  liked  to  have 
Pinney  talk ;  Pinney  could  see  that  he  was  uneasy 
when  he  left  the  room,  and  glad  when  he  got  back  ; 
he  made  up  his  mind  that  Northwick  was  somehow  a 
very  sick  man.  He  lay  quite  motionless  in  the  lower 
berth,  where  Pinney  made  him  comfortable;  his 
hands  were  folded  on  his  breast,  and  his  eyes  were 
closed.  Sometimes  Pinney,  as  he  talked  on,  thought 
the  man  was  dead ;  and  there  were  times  when  he 
invented  questions  that  Northwick  had  to  answer  yes 
or  no,  before  he  felt  sure  that  he  was  still  alive  ;  his 
breath  went  and  came  so  softly  Pinney  could  not 
hear  it. 

Pinney  told  him  all  about  his  courtship  arid  married 
life,  and  what  a  prize  he  had  drawn  in  Mrs.  Pinney. 
He  said  she  had  been  the  making  of  him,  and  if  he 
ever  did  amount  to  anything,  he  should  owe  it  to  her. 
They  had  their  eye  on  a  little  place  out  of  town,  out 
Wollaston  way,  arid  Pinney  was  going  to  try  to  get 
hold  of  it.  He  was  tired  of  being  mewed  up  in  a  flat, 
and  he  wanted  the  baby  to  get  its  feet  on  the  ground, 


422  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

when  it  began  to  walk.  He  wanted  to  make  his  rent 
pay  part  of  his  purchase.  He  considered  that  it  was 
every  man's  duty  to  provide  a  permanent  home  for  his 
famity,  as  soon  as  he  began  to  have  a  family  ;  and  he 
asked  North  wick  if  he  did  not  think  a  permanent 
home  was  the  thing. 

Northwick  said  he  thought  it  was,  and  after  he 
said  that,  he  sighed  so  deeply  that  Pinney  said,  "  Oh, 
I  beg  your  pardon."  He  had,  in  fact,  lost  the  sense 
of  Northwick's  situation,  and  now  he  recurred  to  it 
with  a  fresh  impulse  of  compassion.  If  his  compassion 
was  mixed  with  interest,  with  business,  as  he  would 
have  said,  it  was  none  the  less  a  genuine  emotion,  and 
Pinney  was  sincere  enough  in  saying  he  wished  it 
could  be  fixed  so  that  Northwick  could  get  back  to 
his  home  ;  at  his  time  of  life  he  needed  it. 

"And  I  don't  believe  but  what  it  could  be  fixed," 
he  said.  "  I  don't  know  much  about  the  points  of  the 
case ;  but  I  should  say  that  with  the  friends  you've 
got,  you  wouldn't  have  a  great  deal  of  trouble.  I 
presume  there  are  some  legal  forms  you  would  have 
to  go  through  with ;  but  those  things  can  always  be 
appealed  and  continued  and  nolle  prossed,  and  all  that, 
till  there  isn't  anything  of  them,  in  the  end.  Of 
course,  it  would  have  been  different  if  they  could  have 
got  hold  of  you  in  the  beginning.  But  now,"  said 
Pinney,  forgetting  what  he  had  already  said  of  it, 
"  the  whole  thing  has  blown  over,  so  that  that  letter 
of  yours  from  Ilimouski  hardly  started  a  ripple  in 
Boston ;  I  can't  say  how  it  was  in  Hatboro'.  No, 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          423 

sir,  I  don't  believe  that  if  you  went  back  now,  and 
your  friends  stood  by  you  as  they  ought  to,  —  I  don't 
believe  you'd  get  more  than  a  mere  nominal  sentence, 
if  you  got  that." 

Northwick  made  no  reply,  but  Pinney  fancied  that 
his  words  were  having  weight  with  him,  and  he  went 
on  :  "I  don't  know  whether  you've  ever  kept  the  run 
of  these  kind  of  things  ;  but  a  friend  of  mine  has,  and 
he  says  there  isn't  one  case  in  ten  where  the  law  car 
ries  straight.  You  see,  public  feeling  has  got  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  it,  and  when  the  people  get  to  feeling 
that  a  man  has  suffered  enough,  the  courts  are  not  go 
ing  to  be  hard  on  him.  No,  sir.  I've  seen  it  time 
and  again,  in  my  newspaper  experience.  The  public 
respects  a  man's  sufferings,  and  if  public  opinion  can't 
work  the  courts,  it  can  work  the  Governor's  council. 
Fact  is,  I  looked  into  that  business  of  yours  a  little, 
after  you  left,  Mr.  Northwick,  and  I  couldn't  see,  ex 
actly,  why  you  didn't  stay,  and  try  to  fix  it  up  with 
the  company.  I  believe  you  could  have  done  it,  and 
that  was  the  impression  of  a  good  many  other  news 
paper  men  ;  and  they're  pretty  good  judges ;  they've 
seen  a  lot  of  life.  It's  exciting,  and  it's  pleasant, 
newspaper  work  is,"  said  Pinney,  straying  back  again 
into  the  paths  of  autobiography,  "  but  I've  got  about 
enough  of  it,  myself.  The  worst  of  it  is,  there  ain't 
any  outcome  to  it.  The  chances  of  promotion  are 
about  as  good  as  they  are  in  the  !!•  S.  Army  when  the 
Reservations  are  quiet.  So  I'm  going  into  something 
else.  I'd  like  to  tell  you  about  it,  if  you  ain't  too 
sleepy  ?  " 


424          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  I  am  rather  tired,"  said  Northwick,  with  affecting 
patience. 

"  Oh,  well,  then,  I  guess  we'll  postpone  it  till  to 
morrow.  It'll  keep.  My !  It  don't  seem  as  I  was 
going  back  to  my  wife  and  baby.  It  seems  too  good 
to  be  true.  Every  time  I  leave  'em,  I  just  bet  my 
self  I  shaVt  get  back  alive  ;  or  if  I  do  that  I  sha'ri't 
find  'em  safe  and  sound  ;  and  I'm  just  as  sure  I'll 
win  every  time,  as  if  I'd  never  lost  the  bet  yet." 

Pinney  undressed  rapidly,  and  before  he  climbed 
into  the  berth  over  Northwick's,  he  locked  the  door, 
and  put  the  key  under  his  pillow.  Northwick  did  not 
seem  to  notice  him,  but  a  feeling  of  compunction  made 
him  put  the  key  back  in  the  door.  "  I  guess  I'd  bet 
ter  leave  it  there,  after  all,"  he  said.  "It'll  stop  a 
key  from  the  outside.  Well,  sir,  good-night,"  he 
added  to  Northwick,  and  climbed  to  his  berth  with  a 
light  heart.  Toward  morning  he  was  wakened  by  a 
groaning  from  the  lower  berth,  and  he  found  North- 
wick  in  great  pain.  He  wished  to  call  for  help ;  but 
Northwick  said  the  pain  would  pass,  and  asked  him  to 
get  him  some  medicine  he  had  in  his  hand-bag ;  and 
when  he  had  taken  that  he  was  easier.  But  he  held 
fast  to  Pinney's  hand,  which  he  had  gripped  in  one  of 
his  spasms,  and  he  did  not  loose  it  till  Pinney  heard 
him  drawing  his  breath  in  the  long  respirations  of 
sleep.  Then  Pinney  got  back  to  his  berth,  and  fell 
heavily  asleep. 

He  knew  it  was  late  when  he  woke.  The  boat  was 
at  rest,  and  must  be  lying  at  her  landing  in  Quebec. 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  425 

He  heard  the  passengers  outside  hurrying  clown  the 
cabin  to  go  ashore.  When  he  had  collected  himself, 
and  recalled  the  events  of  the  night,  he  was  almost 
afraid  to  look  down  at  Northwick  lest  he  should  find 
him  lying  dead  in  his  berth ;  when  he  summoned 
courage  to  look,  he  found  the  berth  empty. 

He  leaped  out  upon  the  floor,  and  began  to  throw 
himself  into  his  clothes.  He  was  reassured,  for  a 
moment,  by  seeing  Northwick's  travelling-bag  in  the 
corner  with  his  own  ;  but  the  hand-bag  was  gone.  He 
rushed  out,  as  soon  as  he  could  make  himself  decent, 
and  searched  every  part  of  the  boat  where  Northwick 
might  probably  be  ;  but  he  was  not  to  be  seen. 

He  asked  a  steward  how  long  the  boat  had  been  in ; 
and  the  steward  said  since  six  o'clock.  It  was  then 
eight. 

Northwick  was  not  waiting  for  Pinney  on  the  wharf, 
and  he  climbed  disconsolately  to  his  hotel  in  the  Up 
per  Town.  He  bet,  as  a  last  resource,  that  North- 
wick  would  not  be  waiting  there  for  him,  to  give  him 
a  pleasant  surprise,  and  he  won  his  disastrous  wager. 

It  did  not  take  his  wife  so  long  to  understand  what 
had  happened,  as  Pinney  thought  it  would.  She  went 
straight  to  the  heart  of  the  mystery. 

"  Did  you  say  anything  about  his  going  back?  " 

"  Why  —  in  a  general  way,"  Pinney  admitted,  rue 
fully. 

u  Then,  of  course,  that  made  him  afraid  of  you. 
You  broke  your  word,  Ren,  and  it's  served  you  right." 

His  wife  was  walking  to  and  fro  with  the  baby  in 


426  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

her  arms  ;  and  she  said  it  was  sick,  and  she  had  been 
up  all  night  with  it.  She  told  Pinney  he  had  better 
go  out  and  get  a  doctor. 

It  was  all  as  different  from  the  return  Pinney  had 
planned  as  it  could  be. 

"  I  believe  the  old  fool  is  crazy,"  he  said,  and  he 
felt  that  this  was  putting  the  mildest  possible  construc 
tion  upon  Northwick's  behavior. 

"He  seems  to  have  known  what  he  was  about, 
anyway,"  said  Mrs.  Pinney,  coldly.  The  baby  began 
to  cry.  "  Oh,  do  go  for  the  doctor !  " 


V. 

THE  day  was  still  far  from  dawning  when  North- 
wick  crept  up  the  silent  avenue,  in  the  dark  of  its  firs, 
toward  his  empty  house,  and  stealthily  began  to  seek 
for  that  home  in  it  which  had  haunted  his  sleeping  and 
waking  dreams  so  long.  He  had  a  kind  of  ecstacy  in 
the  risk  he  ran  ;  a  wild  pleasure  mixed  with  the  terror 
he  felt  in  being  what  and  where  he  was.  He  wanted 
to  laugh  when  he  thought  of  the  perfect  ease  and  safety 
of  his  return.  At  the  same  time  a  thrilling  anxiety 
pierced  him  through  and  through,  and  made  him  take 
all  the  precautions  of  a  thief  in  the  night. 

A  thief  in  the  night :  that  was  the  phrase  which 
kept  repeating  itself  to  him,  till  he  said  it  over  under 
his  breath,  as  he  put  oif  his  shoes,  and  stole  up  the 
piazza-steps,  and  began  to  peer  into  the  long  windows, 
at  the  blackness  within.  He  did  not  at  once  notice 
that  the  shutters  were  open,  with  an  effect  of  reckless 
security  or  indifference,  which  struck  a  pang  to  his 
heart  when  he  realized  it.  He  felt  the  evil  omen  of 
this  faltering  in  the  vigilance  which  had  once  guarded 
his  home,  and  which  he  had  been  the  first  to  break 
down,  and  lay  it  open  to  spoil  and  waste.  He  tried 
the  windows ;  he  must  get  in,  somehow,  and  he  did  not 


428  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

dare  to  ring  at  the  door,  or  to  call  out.  He  must  steal 
into  his  house,  as  he  had  stolen  out  of  it. 

One  of  the  windows  yielded  ;  the  long  glass  door 
gave  inward,  and  he  stepped  on  the  carpetless  floor  of 
the  library.  Then  the  fact  of  the  change  that  must 
have  passed  upon  the  whole  house  enforced  itself,  and 
he  felt  a  passionate  desire  to  face  and  appropriate  the 
change  in  every  detail.  He  lit  one  of  the  little 
taper  matches  that  he  had  with  him,  and,  hollow 
ing  his  hands  around  it,  let  its  glimmer  show  him  the 
desolation  of  the  dismantled  and  abandoned  rooms. 
He  passed  through  the  doors  set  wide  between  library 
and  drawing-room  and  dining-room  and  hall ;  and  then 
from  his  dying  taper  he  lit  another,  and  mounted  the 
stairs.  He  had  no  need  to  seek  his  daughter's  rooms 
to  satisfy  himself  that  the  whole  place  was  empty ;  they 
were  gone  ;  but  he  had  a  fantastic  expectation  that  in 
his  own  room  he  might  find  himself.  There  was  noth 
ing  there,  either  ;  it  was  as  if  he  were  a  ghost  come 
back  in  search  of  the  body  it  had  left  behind;  any 
one  that  met  him,  he  thought,  might  well  be  more 
frightened  than  he ;  and  yet  he  did  not  lose  the  sense 
of  risk  to  himself. 

He  had  an  expectation,  born  of  long  custom,  ajid 
persisting  in  spite  of  the  nakedness  of  the  place  other 
wise,  that  he  should  see  the  pictured  face  of  his  wife, 
where  it  had  looked  so  mercifully  at  him  that  last 
night  from  the  portrait  above  the  mantel.  He  sighed 
lightly  to  find  it  gone ;  her  chair  was  gone  from  the 
bay-window,  where  he  had  stood  to  gaze  his  last  over 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          429 

the  possessions  he  was  abandoning.  He  let  his  little 
taper  die  out  by  the  hearth,  and  then  crept  toward  the 
glimmer  of  the  window,  and  looked  out  again.  The 
conservatories  and  the  dairies  and  the  barns  showed 
plain  in  the  gray  of  the  moonless,  starless  night ;  in 
the  coachman's  quarters  a  little  point  of  light  ap 
peared  for  a  moment  through  the  window,  and  then 
vanished. 

Northwick  knew  from  this  that  the  place  was  inhab 
ited;  unless  some  homeless  tramp  like  himself  was 
haunting  it,  and  it  went  through  his  confusion  that  he 
must  speak  to  Newton,  and  caution  him  about  tramps 
sleeping  in  the  barns  anywhere ;  they  might  set  them 
on  fire.  His  mind  reverted  to  his  actual  condition, 
and  he  wondered  how  long  he  could  come  and  go  as  a 
vagrant  without  being  detected.  If  it  were  not  for  the 
action  against  vagrants  which  he  had  urged  upon  the 
selectmen  the  summer  before,  he  might  now  come  and 
go  indefinitely.  But  he  was  not  to  blame ;  it  was  be 
cause  Mrs.  Morrell  had  encouraged  the  tramps  by  her 
reckless  charity  that  something  had  to  be  done  ;  and 
now  it  was  working  against  him.  It  was  hard:  he 
remembered  reading  of  a  man  who  had  left  his  family 
one  day,  arid  taken  a  room  across  the  street,  and  lived 
there  in  sight  of  them  unknown  till  he  died  :  and  now 
he  could  not  have  passed  his  own  door  without  danger 
of  arrest  as  a  vagrant.  He  struck  another  match,  and 
looked  at  himself  in  the  mirror  framed  as  a  window  at 
one  side  of  the  bay  ;  he  believed  that  with  the  long 
white  beard  he  wore,  and  his  hair  which  he  had  let 
grow,  his  own  children  would  not  have  known  him. 


430  THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY. 

It  was  bitter ;  but  his  mind  suddenly  turned  from 
the  thought,  with  a  lightness  it  had,  and  he  remem 
bered  that  now  he  did  not  know  where  his  children 
lived.  He  must  find  out,  somehow  ;  he  had  come  to 
see  them;  and  he  could  not  go  back  without.  He 
must  hurry  to  find  them,  and  be  gone  again  before 
daylight.  He  crept  out  to  the  stairs,  and  struck  a 
match  to  light  himself  down,  and  he  carried  it  still  burn 
ing,  toward  the  window  he  had  left  open  behind  him 
in  the  library.  As  soon  as  he  stepped  out  on  the 
piazza  he  found  himself  gripped  fast  in  the  arms  of  a 
man. 

"I've  got  you!  What  you  doing  in  here,  I'd  like 
to  know  ?  Who  are  you,  anyway,  you  thief  ?  Just 
hold  that  lantern  up  to  his  face,  a  minute,  'Lectra." 

Northwick  had  not  tried  to  resist;  he  had  not 
struggled ;  he  had  known  Elbridge  Newton's  voice  at 
the  first  word.  He  saw  the  figure  of  a  woman  beside 
him,  stooping  over  the  lantern,  and  he  knew  that  it 
was  Mrs.  Newton  ;  but  he  made  no  sort  of  appeal  to 
either.  He  did  not  make  the  least  sound  or  move 
ment.  The  habit  of  his  whole  life  was  reticence,  es 
pecially  in  emergencies ;  and  this  habit  had  been 
strengthened  and  deepened  by  the  solitude  in  which 
he  had  passed  the  last  half-year.  If  a  knife  had  been 
put  to  his  throat,  he  would  not  have  uttered  a  cry  for 
mercy ;  but  his  silence  was  so  involuntary  that  it  seemed 
to  him  he  did  not  breathe  while  Mrs.  Newton  was 
turning  up  the  wick  of  the  lantern  for  a  good  look  at 
him.  When  the  light  was  lifted  to  his  face,  North- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          431 

wick  felt  that  they  both  knew  him  through  the  disguise 
of  his  white  beard.  Elbridge's  grip  fell  from  him  and 
let  him  stand  free.  u  Well,  I'll  be  dumned,"  said 
Elbridge. 

His  wife  remained  holding  the  lantern  to  North- 
wick's  face.  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  him  ?  " 
she  asked  at  last,  as  if  North  wick  were  not  present ; 
he  stood  so  dumb  and  impassive. 

"  I  d'  know  as  I  know,"  said  Newton,  overpowered 
by  the  peculiar  complications  of  the  case.  He  escaped 
from  them  for  the  moment  in  the  probable  inference : 
"  I  presume  he  was  lookin'  for  his  daughters.  Didn't 
you  know,"  he  turned  to  North  wick,  with  a  sort  of 
apologetic  reproach,  "  lightin'  matches  that  way  in  the 
house,  here,  you  might  set  it  on  fire,  and  you'd  be 
sure  to  make  people  think  there  was  somebody  there, 
anyhow?  " 

Northwick  made  no  answer  to  this  question,  and 
Newton  looked  him  carefully  over  in  the  light  of  the 
lantern.  "  I  swear,  he's  in  his  stockiri'  feet.  You 
look  round  and  see  if  you  can  find  his  shoes,  anywhere, 
'Lectra.  You  got  the  light."  Newton  seemed  to  insist 
upon  this  because  it  relieved  him  to  delegate  any  step 
in  this  difficult  matter  to  another. 

His  wife  cast  the  light  of  her  lantern  about,  and 
found  the  shoes  by  the  piazza-steps,  and  as  North- 
wick  appeared  no  more  able  to  move  than  to  speak, 
Elbridge  stooped  down,  and  put  on  his  shoes  for  him 
where  he  stood.  When  he  lifted  himself,  he  stared 

a^ain  at  Northwick,  as  if  to  make  perfectly  sure  of 

28 


432  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

him,  and  then  he  said,  with  a  sigh  of  perplexity,  "  You 
go  ahead,  a  little  ways,  'Lectra,  with  the  lantern.  I 
presume  we've  got  to  take  him  to  'em,"  and  his  wife, 
usually  voluble  and  wilful,  silently  obeyed. 

"  Want  to  see  your  daughters  ?  "  he  asked  North- 
wick,  and  at  the  silence  which  was  his  only  response, 
Newton  said,  "  Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  blame  him 
any,  for  not  wantin'  to  commit  himself.  You  don't 
want  to  be  afraid,"  he  added,  to  Northvvick,  "  that 
anybody's  goin'  to  keep  you  against  your  will,  you 
know." 

"  Well,  I  guess  not,"  said  Mrs.  Newton,  finding  her 
tongue,  at  last.  "  If  they  was  to  double  and  treble 
the  reward,  I'd  slap  'em  in  the  face  first.  Bring  him 
along,  Elbridge." 

As  Northwick  no  more  moved  than  spoke,  New 
ton  took  him  by  the  arm,  and  helped  him  down 
the  piazza-steps  and  into  the  dark  of  the  avenue,  tun 
nelled  about  their  feet  by  the  light  of  the  lantern,  as 
they  led  and  pushed  their  helpless  capture  toward  the 
lodge  at  the  avenue  gate. 

Northwick  had  heard  and  understood  them  ;  he 
did  not  know  what  secret  purpose  their  pretence  of 
taking  him  to  his  children  might  not  cover ;  but  he 
was  not  capable  of  offering  any  resistance,  and  when 
he  reached  the  cottage  he  sank  passively  on  the  steps. 
He  shook  in  every  nerve,  while  Elbridge  pounded  on 
the  door,  till  a  \vindow  above  was  lifted,  and  Ade 
line's  frightened  voice  quavered  out,  "  Who  is  it  ? 
What  is  it?" 


THE    QUALITY    OP   MERCY.  433 

Mrs.  Newton  took  the  words  out  of  her  husband's 
mouth.  "  It's  us,  Miss  Northwick.  If  you're  sure 
you're  awake  —  " 

"  Oh,  yes.     I  haven't  been  asleep  !  " 

"  Then  listen !  "  said  Mr.  Newton,  in  a  lowered 
tone.  "  And  don't  be  scared.  Don't  call  out  —  don't 
speak  loud.  There's  somebody  here  — •  Come  down, 
and  let  him  in." 

Northwick  stood  up.  lie  heard  the  fluttered  rush 
of  steps  on  the  stairs  inside.  The  door  opened,  and 
Adeline  caught  him  in  her  arms,  with  choking,  joyful 
sobs.  "  Oh,  father !  Oh,  father !  Oh,  I  knew  HI  I 
knew  it !  Oh,  oh,  oh  !  Where  was  he  ?  How  did 
you  find  him  ?  " 

She  did  not  heed  their  answers.  She  did  not  real 
ize  that  she  was  shutting  them  out  when  she  shut  her 
self  in  with  her  father ;  but  they  understood. 


VI. 

NORTHWICK  stared  round  him  in  the  light  of  the 
lamp  which  Adeline  turned  up.  He  held  fast  by  one 
of  her  hands.  "  What's  he  going  to  do  ?  Has  he 
gone  for  the  officer  ?  Is  he  going  to  give  me  up  ?  " 

"Who?  Elbridge  Xewton  ?  Well,  I  guess  his 
wife  hasn't  forgot  what  you  did  for  them  wrhen  their 
little  boy  died,  if  he  has,  and  I  guess  he  hasn't  gone 
for  any  officer  !  Where  did  you  see  him  ?  " 

"  In  the  house.     I  was  there." 

"  But  how  did  he  know  it  ?  " 

"  I  had  to  have  a  light  to  see  by." 

"Oh,  my  goodness!  If  anybody  else  had  caught 
you  I  don't  know  what  I  should  have  done.  I  don't 
see  how  you  could  be  so  venturesome  !  " 

"  I  thought  you  were  there.  I  had  to  come  back. 
I  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer,  when  that  fellow  came 
with  your  letter." 

"  Oh,  he  found  you,"  she  cried,  joyfully.  "  I  knew 
he  would  find  you,  and  I  said  so  —  Sit  down,  father  ; 
do."  She  pushed  him  gently  into  a  cushioned  rock 
ing-chair.  "  It's  mother's  chair  ;  don't  you  remember, 
it  always  stood  in  the  bay-window  in  your  room,  where 
she  put  it?  Louise  Hilary  bought  it  at  the  sale  —  I 
know  she  bought  it  —  and  gave  it  to  me.  It  was 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY.  435 

because  the  place  was  mother's  that  I  wouldn't  let 
Suzette  give  it  up  to  the  company." 

He  did  not  seem  to  understand  what  she  was  say 
ing.  He  stared  at  her  piteously,  and  he  said  with  an 
effort :  "  Adeline,  I  didn't  know  about  that  accident. 
I  didn't  know  you  thought  I  was  dead,  or  I  —  " 

"No!  Of  course  you  didn't!  I  always  told  Su- 
zotte  you  didn't.  Don't  you  suppose  I  always  believed 
in  you,  lather  ?  We  both  believed  in  you,  through  it 
all ;  and  when  that  letter  of  yours  came  out  in  the 
paper  I  knew  you  were  just  overwrought." 

Northwick  rose  and  looked  fearfully  round  him 
again,  and  then  came  closer  to  her,  with  his  hand  in 
his  breast.  He  drew  it  out  with  the  roll  of  bank-notes 
in  it.  "  Here's  that  money  I  took  away  with  me.  I 
always  kept  it  in  my  belt :  but  it  hurt  me  there.  I 
want  you  should  take  care  of  it  for  me,  and  we  can 
make  terms  with  them  to  let  me  stay." 

"  Oh,  they  wont  let  you  stay.  We've  tried  it  over 
and  over;  and  the  court  won't  let  you.  They  say 
you  will  have  to  be  tried,  and  they  will  put  you  in 
prison." 

Northwick  mechanically  put  the  money  back. 

"  Well,  let  them,"  said  the  broken  man.  "  I  can't 
stand  it  any  longer.  I  have  got  to  stay."  He  sank 
into  the  chair,  and  Adeline  broke  into  tears. 

"  Oh,  I  can't  let  you  !  You  must  go  back  !  Think 
of  your  good  name;  that  there's  never  been  any  dis 
grace  on ! '' 

''What  —  what's  that?"  Northwick  quavered,  at 
the  sound  of  footsteps  overhead. 


436  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Why,  it's  Suzette,  of  course  !  And  I  hadn't  called 
her,"  said  Adeline,  breaking  off  from  her  weeping. 
She  ran  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  and  called,  huskily, 
"  Suzette,  Suzette !  Come  down  this  instant !  Come 
down,  come  down,  come  down !  "  She  bustled  back 
to  her  father.  "  You  must  be  hungry,  ain't  you, 
father  ?  I'll  get  you  a  cup  of  tea  over  my  lamp  here ; 
the  water  heats  as  quick !  And  you'll  feel  stronger  after 
that.  Don't  you  be  afraid  of  anything;  there's  no 
body  here  but  Suzette  ;  Mrs.  Newton  comes  to  do  the 
work  in  the  morning ;  they  used  to  stay  with  us,  but 
we  don't  mind  it  a  bit,  being  alone  here.  I  did  want 
to  go  into  the  farm-house,  when  we  left  our  own,  but 
Suzette  couldn't  bear  to  live  right  in  sight  of  our 
home,  all  the  time ;  she  said  it  would  be  worse  than 
being  afraid;  but  we  haven't  been  afraid;  and  the 
Newtons  come  all  the  time  to  see  if  we  want  anything. 
And  now  that  you've  got  back  — "  She  stopped,  and 
stared  at  him  in  a  daze,  and  then  turned  to  her  lamp 
again,  as  if  unable  to  cope  with  the  situation.  "  I 
haven't  been  very  well,  lately,  but  I'm  getting  better  ; 
and  if  only  we  could  get  the  court  to  let  you  come 
back  I  should  be  as  well  as  ever.  I  don't  believe  but 
what  Mr.  Hilary  will  make  it  out  yet.  Father !  " 
She  dropped  her  voice,  and  glanced  round  ;  "  Suzette's 
engaged  to  young  Mr.  Hilary  —  oh,  he's  the  best  young 
man  !  — and  I  guess  they're  going  to  be  married  just 
as  soon  as  we  can  arrange  it  about  you.  I  thought 
I'd  tell  you  before  she  came  down." 

Northwick  did  not  seem  to  have  taken  the  fact  in. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  437 

or  else  he  could  not  appreciate  it  rightly.  "  Do  you 
suppose,"  he  whispered  back,  "  that  she'll  speak  to 
me?" 

«  Speak  to  you  !  " 

"  I  didn't  know.  She  was  always  so  proud.  But 
now  I've  brought  back  the  money,  all  but  the  little 
I've  had  to  use  —  " 

There  was  a  rustle  of  skirts  on  the  stairs.  Su- 
zette  stood  a  moment  in  the  doorway,  looking  at  her 
father,  as  if  not  sure  he  was  real ;  then  she  flung  her 
self  upon  him,  and  buried  her  face  in  his  white  beard, 
and  kissed  him  with  a  passion  of  grief  and  love.  She 
sank  into  his  lap,  with  a  long  sigh,  and  let  her  head 
fall  on  his  shoulder.  All  that  was  not  simply  father 
and  daughter  was  for  the  moment  annulled  between 
them. 

Adeline  looked  on  admiring,  while  she  kept  about 
heating  the  water  over  her  lamp  ;  and  they  all  took 
up  fitfully  the  broken  threads  of  their  lives,  and  tried 
to  piece  them  again  into  some  sort  of  unity. 

Adeline  did  most  of  the  talking.  She  told  her 
father  how  friends  seemed  to  have  been  raised  up  for 
them  in  their  need,  when  it  was  greatest.  She  praised 
herself  for  the  inspiration  she  had  in  going  to  Putney 
for  advice,  because  she  remembered  how  her  father 
had  spoken  of  him  that  last  night,  and  for  refusing  to 
give  up  the  property  to  the  company.  She  praised 
Putney  for  justifying  and  confirming  her  at  every 
step,  and  for  doing  everything  that  could  be  done 
about  the  court.  She  praised  the  Hilarys,  all  of 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY. 

them,  for  their  constancy  to  her  father  throughout,  and 
she  said  she  believed  that  if  Mr.  Hilary  could  have 
had  his  way,  there  never  would  have  been  any 
trouble  at  all  about  the  accounts,  and  she  wanted  her 
father  to  understand  just  how  the  best  people  felt 
about  him.  He  listened  vaguely  to  it  all.  A  clock  in 
the  next  room  struck  four,  and  North  wick  started  to 
his  feet.  "  I  must  20  !  " 

o 

"  Go  ?  "  Adeline  echoed. 

"  Why  must  you  go  ?  "  said  Suzette,  clinging  about 
him. 

They  were  all  silent  in  view  of  the  necessity  that 
stared  them  in  the  face. 

Then  Adeline  roused  herself  from  the  false  dream 
of  safety  in  which  her  words  had  lulled  her.  She 
wailed  out,  "  He's  got  to  go !  Oh,  Suzette,  let  him 
go !  He's  got  to  go  to  prison  if  he  stays !  " 

"  It's  prison  there,"  said  Northwick.  "  Let  me  stay !  " 

"  No,  no  !     I  can't  let  you  stay  !     Oh,  how  hard  I 

am  to  make  you  go !     What  makes  you  leave  it  all  to 

me,  Suzette  ?     It's  for  you,  as  much  as  anything,  I  do 

it." 

"  Then  don't  do  it !  If  father  wants  to  stay  ;  if  he 
thinks  he  had  better,  or  if  he  will  feel  easier,  he  shall 
stay ;  and  you  needn't  think  of  me.  I  won't  let  you 
think  of  me  !  " 

"  But  what  would  they  say  —  Mr.  Hilary  say  —  if 
they  sent  father  to  prison  ?  " 

Suzette's  eyes  glowed.  "  Let  them  say  what  they 
will.  I  know  I  can  trust  him,  but  if  he  wants  to  give 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  439 

me  up  for  that,  he  may.  If  father  wishes  to  stay,  he 
shall,  and  nothing  that  they  can  do  to  him  will  ever 
make  him  different  to  us.  If  he  tells  us  that  he  didn't 
mean  anything  wrong,  that  will  be  enough  ;  and  people 
may  say  what  they  please,  and  think  what  they  please." 

Northwick  listened  with  a  confused  air.  He  looked 
from  one  to  the  other,  as  if  beaten  back  and  forth  be 
tween  them ;  he  started  violently,  when  Adeline  al 
most  screamed  out :  "  Oh,  you  don't  know  what  you're 
talking  about !  Father,  tell  her  you  don't  wish  to 
stay !  " 

"  I  must  go,  Suzette  ;  I  had  better  go  —  " 

"  Here,  drink  this  tea,  now,  and  it  will  give  you  a 
little  strength."  Adeline  pressed  the  cup  on  him  that 
she  had  been  getting  ready  through  all,  and  made  him 
drain  it.  "  Now,  then,  hurry,  hurry,  hurry,  father  I  Say 
good-by !  You've  got  to  go,  now  —  yes,  you've  got 
to! — but  it  won't  be  for  long.  You've  seen  us,  and 
you've  found  out  we're  alive  and  well,  and  now  we 
can  write  —  be  sure  you  write,  father,  when  you  get 
back  there  ;  or,  you'd  better  telegraph  —  and  we  can 
arrange  —  I  know  we  can  —  for  you  to  come  home, 
and  stay  home." 

u  Home  !  Home  !  "  Northwick  murmured. 

"  It  seems  as  if  he  wanted  to  kill  me  !  "  Adeline 
sobbed  into  her  hands.  She  took  them  away.  "  Well, 
stay,  then!  "  she  said. 

"  No,  no !  I'll  go,"  said  Northwick.  "  You're  not 
to  blame,  Adeline.  It's  all  right  —  all  for  the  best. 
I'll  go-" 


440  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"  And  let  us  know  where  you  are,  when  you  get 
there,  this  time,  father !  "  said  Adeline. 

"  Yes,  I  will." 

"And  we  will  come  to  you,  there,"  Suzette  put  in. 
"  We  can  live  together  in  Canada,  as  well  as  -here." 

Northwick  shook  his  head.  "  It's  not  the  same.  I 
can't  get  used  to  it ;  their  business  methods  are  differ 
ent.  I  couldn't  put  my  capital  into  any  of  their  enter 
prises.  I've  looked  the  whole  ground  over.  And  — 
and  I  want  to  get  back  into  our  place." 

He  said  these  things  vaguely,  almost  dryly,  but  with 
an  air  of  final  conviction,  as  after  much  sober  reflec 
tion.  He  sat  down,  but  Adeline  would  not  let  him 
be.  "  Well,  then,  we'll  help  you  to  think  out  some 
way  of  getting  back,  after  we're  all  there  together. 
Go ;  it'll  soon  begin  to  be  light,  and  I'm  afraid  some- 
body'll  see  you,  and  stop  you !  But  oh,  my  goodness  ! 
How  are  you  going  ?  You  can't  walk !  And  if  you 
try  to  start  from  our  depot,  they'll  know  you,  some 
one,  and  they'll  arrest  you.  What  shall  we  do  ?  " 

"  I  came  over  from  East  Hatboro'  to-night,"  said 
Northwick.  "  I  am  going  back  there  to  get  the  morn 
ing  train."  This  was  the  way  he  had  planned,  and  he 
felt  the  strength  of  a  fixed  purpose  in  returning  to  his 
plan  in  words. 

"  But  it's  three  miles  !  "  Adeline  shrieked.  "  You 
can  never  get  there  in  the  world  in  time  for  the  train. 
Oh,  why  didn't  I  tell  Elbridge  to  come  for  you !  I 
must  go  and  tell  him  to  get  ready  right  away." 

"  No,  I'll  go !  "  said  Suzette.     u  Adeline !  " 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  441 

Adeline  flung  the  door  open,  and  started  back,  with 
a  cry,  from  the  dark,  van-like  vehicle  before  the  door, 
which  looked  like  the  Black  Maria,  or  an  undertaker's 
wagon,  in  the  pale  light. 

"  It's  me,"  said  Elbridge's  voice  from  the  front  of 
it,  and  Elbridge's  head  dimly  showed  itself.  "  I  got  to 
thinkin'  maybe  you'd  want  the  carryall,  and  I  didn't 
know  but  what  I'd  better  go  and  hitch  up,  anyway." 

"Oh,  well,  we  did!  "  cried  Adeline,  with  an  hyster 
ical  laugh.  "  Here,  now,  father,  get  right  in  !  Don't 
lose  a  second.  Kiss  Suzette ;  good-by !  Be  sure 
you  get  him  to  East  Hatboro'  in  time  for  the  four- 
forty,  Elbridge  !  "  She  helped  her  father,  shaking 
and  stumbling,  into  the  shelter  of  the  curtained  carry 
all.  "  If  anybody  tries  to  stop  you  —  " 

"  I'd  like  to  see  anybody  try  to  stop  me,"  said  El- 
bridge,  and  he  whipped  up  his  horse.  Then  he  leaned 
back  toward  Northwick,  and  said,  "  I'm  going  to  get 
the  black  colt's  time  out  of  the  old  mare." 

"  Which  mare  is  it  ?  "  Northwick  asked. 


VII. 

ON  his  way  home  from  the  station,  Elbridge  Newton 
began  to  have  some  anxieties.  He  had  no  longer  oc 
casion  for  any  about  Northwick,  he  was  safe  on  his 
way  back  to  Canada;  and  Elbridge's  anxieties  were 
for  himself.  He  was  in  the  cold  fit  after  his  act  of 
ardent  generosity.  He  had  no  desire  to  entangle  him 
self  with  the  law  by  his  act  of  incivism  in  helping 
Northwick  to  escape,  and  he  thought  it  might  be  well 
to  put  himself  on  the  safe  side  by  seeing  Putney  about 
it,  and  locking  the  stable  after  the  horse  was  stolen. 

He  drove  round  by  the  lawyer's  house,  and  stopped 
at  his  gate  just  as  Putney  pushed  his  lawn-mower  up 
to  it,  in  his  exercise  of  the  instrument  before  break 
fast. 

Elbridge  leaned  out  of  the  carryall,  and  asked,  in  a 
low  confidential  voice,  "  If  J.  Milton  Northwick  was 
to  come  back  here,  on  the  sly,  say,  to  see  his  fam 
ily,  and  I  was  to  help  him  git  off  again,  would  I  be 
li'ble  ?  '' 

"  Why  ?  "  asked  Putney. 

"  Because  I  just  done  it,"  said  Elbridge,  desper 
ately. 

"Just  done  it?"  shouted  Putney.  "  Why,  con 
found  you  !  "  He  suddenly  brought  his  voice  down. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  443 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  the  fellow's  been  back  here, 
and  you  didn't  let  me  know  ?  " 

"  I  hadn't  any  orders  to  do  it,"  Elbridge  weakly 
urged. 

"  Orders,  the  devil !  "  Putney  retorted.  "  I'd  'a' 
given  a  hundred  dollars  to  see  that  man  and  talk  with 
him.  Come,  now  ;  tell  me  all  you  know  about  it ! 
Don't  miss  a  thing!  "  After  a  few  words  from  New 
ton,  he  broke  out :  "  Found  him  in  the  house  !  And 
I  was  down  there  prowling  round  the  place  myself  not 
three  hours  before !  Go  on !  Great  Scott !  Just 
think  of  it !  " 

Putney  was  at  one  of  those  crises  of  his  life  when 
his  drink-devil  was  besetting  him  with  sore  temptation, 
and  for  the  last  twenty-four  hours  he  had  been  fight 
ing  it  with  the  ruses  and  pretences  which  he  had 
learned  to  employ  against  it,  but  he  felt  that  he  was 
losing  the  game,  though  he  was  playing  for  much 
greater  stakes  than  usual.  He  had  held  out  so  long 
since  his  last  spree,  that  if  he  lost  now  he  would  de 
feat  hopes  that  were  singularly  precious  and  sacred  to 
him:  the  hopes  that  those  who  loved  him  best,  and 
distrusted  him  most,  and  forgave  him  soonest,  had  be 
gun  to  cherish.  It  would  not  break  his  wife's  heart; 
she  was  used  to  his  lapses ;  but  it  would  wring  it  more 
cruelly  than  usual  if  he  gave  way  now. 

When  the  fiend  thrust  him  out  of  his  house  the 
night  before,  he  knew  that  she  knew  of  it,  though 
she  let  him  go  in  that  fearful  company,  and  made  no 
effort  to  keep  him.  He  was  so  strait  an  agnostic  that, 


444          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

as  he  boasted,  he  had  no  superstitions  even  ;  but  his 
relation  to  the  Northwicks  covered  the  period  of  his 
longest  resistance  of  temptation,  and  by  a  sort  of  in 
stinctive,  brute  impulse,  he  turned  his  step  towards 
the  place  where  they  lived,  as  if  there  might  be  rescue 
for  him  in  the  mere  vicinity  of  those  women  who  had 
appealed  to  him  in  their  distress,  as  to  a  faithful  en 
emy.  Plis  professional  pride,  his  personal  honor,  were 
both  involved  in  the  feeling  that  he  must  not  fail 
them;  their  implicit  reliance  had  been  a  source  of 
strength  to  him.  lie  was  always  hoping  for  some 
turn  of  affairs  which  would  enable  him  to  serve  them, 
or  rather  to  serve  Adeline ;  for  he  cared  little  for 
Suzette,  or  only  secondarily  ;  and  since  Pinney  had 
gone  upon  his  mission  to  Canada  he  was  daily  looking 
for  this  chance  to  happen.  He  must  keep  himself  for 
that,  and  not  because  of  them  alone,  but  because  those 
dearest  to  him  had  come  tacitly  to  connect  his  re 
sistance  of  the  tempter  with  his  zeal  for  the  interests 
of  his  clients.  With  no  more  reasoned  motives  than 
these  he  had  walked  over  the  Northwick  place,  calling 
himself  a  fool  for  supposing  that  some  virtue  should 
enter  into  him  out  of  the  ground  there,  and  yet  find 
ing  a  sort  of  relief,  in  the  mere  mechanical  exercise,  the 
novelty  of  exploring  by  night  the  property  grown  so 
familiar  to  him  by  day,  and  so  strangely  mixed  up  with 
the  great  trial  and  problem  of  his  own  usefulness. 

He  listened  by  turns,  with  a  sinking  and  a  rising 
heart,  as  Newton  now  dug  the  particulars  of  his  adven 
ture  out  of  himself.  At  the  end,  he  turned  to  go  into 
the  house. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  445 

"  Well,  what  do  you  say,  Squire  Putney  ?  "  Elbridge 
called  softly  after  him. 

"Say?" 

"  You  know  :  about  what  I  done." 

"Keep  your  mouth  shut  about  what  you  'done.'  I 
should  like  to  see  you  sent  to  jail,  though,  for  what 
you  didn't  do." 

Elbridge  felt  a  consolatory  quality  in  Putney's  re 
sentment,  and  Putney,  already  busy  with  the  poten 
tialities  of  the  future,  was  buoyed  up  by  the  strong 
excitement  of  what  had  actually  happened  rather  than 
finally  cast  down  by  what  he  had  missed.  He  took 
three  cups  of  the  blackest  coffee  at  breakfast,  and  he 
said  to  the  mute,  anxious  face  of  his  wife,  "Well, 
Ellen,  I  seem  to  be  pulling  through,  somehow." 


VIII. 

ADELINE  was  in  a  flutter  of  voluble  foreboding  till 
Elbridge  came  back.  She  asked  Suzette  whether  she 
believed  their  father  would  get  away  ;  she  said  she 
knew  that  Elbridge  would  miss  the  train,  with  that 
slow,  old  mare,  and  their  father  would  be  arrested. 
Weak  as  she  was  from  the  sick-bed  she  had  left  to 
welcome  him,  she  dressed  herself  carefully,  so  as  to  be 
ready  for  the  worst ;  she  was  going  to  jail  with  him  if 
they  brought  him  back  ;  she  had  made  up  her  mind  to 
that.  From  time  to  time  she  went  out  and  looked  up 
the  road,  to  see  if  Elbridge  was  coming  back  alone,  or 
whether  the  officers  were  bringing  her  father ;  she  ex 
pected  they  would  bring  him  first  to  his  family  ;  she 
did  not  know  why.  Suzette  tried  to  keep  her  indoors  ; 
to  make  her  lie  down.  She  refused,  with  wild  up- 
braidings.  She  declared  that  Suzette  had  never  cared 
anything  for  her  father  ;  she  had  wanted  to  give  their 
mother's  property  away,  to  please  the  Hilarys  ;  and 
now  that  she  was  going  to  marry  Matt  Hilary,  she 
was  perfectly  indifferent  to  everything  else.  She 
asked  Suzette  what  had  come  over  her. 

Elbridge  drove  first  to  the  stable  and  put  up  his 
horse,  when  he  came  back.  Then  he  walked  to  the 
lodge  to  report. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          447 

"  Is  he  safe  ?  Did  he  get  away  ?  Where  is  he  ?  " 
Adeline  shrieked  at  him  before  he  could  get  a  word 
out. 

"He's  all  right,  Miss  Northwick,"  Elbridge  an 
swered  soothingly.  "He's  on  his  way  back  to  Can- 
ady,  again." 

"  Then  I've  driven  him  away !  "  she  lamented. 
"  I've  hunted  him  out  of  his  home,  and  I  shall  never 
see  him  any  more.  Send  for  him !  Send  for  him ! 
Bring  him  back,  I  tell  you !  Go  right  straight  after 
him,  and  tell  him  I  said  to  come  back  !  What  are  you 
standing  there  for  ?  " 

She  fell  fainting.  Elbridge  helped  Suzette  carry  her 
upstairs  to  her  bed,  and  then  ran  to  get  his  wife? 
to  stay  with  them  while  he  went  for  the  doctor. 

Matt  Hilary  had  been  spending  the  night  at  the 
rectory  with  Wade,  and  he  walked  out  to  take  leave 
of  Suzette  once  more  before  he  went  home.  He  found 
the  doctor  just  driving  away.  "  Miss  Northwick  seems 
not  so  well,"  said  the  doctor.  ''I'm  very  glad  you 
happen  to  be  here,  on  all  accounts.  I  shall  come 
again  later  in  the  day." 

Matt  turned  from  the  shadow  of  mystery  the  doc 
tor's  manner  left,  and  knocked  at  the  door.  It  was 
opened  by  Suzette  almost  before  he  touched  it. 

"  Come  in,"  she  said,  in  a  low  voice,  whose  quality 
fended  him  from  her  almost  as  much  as  the  condi 
tional  look  she  gave  him.  The  excited  babble  of  the 
sick  woman  overhead,  mixed  with  Mrs.  Newton's 

nasal  attempts  to  quiet  her,  broke  in  upon  their  talk. 
29 


448  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

"Mr.  Hilary,"  said  Suzette,  formally,  "  are  you 
willing  my  father  should  come  back,  no  matter  what 
happens  ?  " 

"  If  he  wishes  to  come  back.  You  know  what  I 
have  always  said." 

"And  you  would  not  care  if  they  put  him  in 
prison  ?  " 

"  I  should  care  very  much." 

"  You  would  be  ashamed  of  me  !  " 

"  No  !  Never !     What  has  it  to  do  with  you  ? " 

"  Then,"  she  pursued,  "  he  has  come  back.  He  has 
been  here."  She  flashed  all  the  fact  upon  him  in 
vivid,  rapid  phrases,  and  he  listened  with  an  intelligent 
silence  that  stayed  and  comforted  her  as  no  words 
could  have  done.  Before  she  had  finished,  his  arms 
were  round  her,  and  she  felt  how  inalienably  faithful 
he  was.  "  And  now  Adeline  is  raving  to  have  him 
come  back  again,  and  stay.  She  thinks  she  drove  him 
away  ;  she  will  die  if  something  can't  be  done.  She 
says  she  would  not  let  him  stay  because  —  because 
you  would  be  ashamed  of  us.  She  says  I  would  be 
ashamed  —  " 

"  Suzette !  Sue !  "  Adeline  called  down  from  the 
chamber  above,  "  don't  you  let  Mr.  Hilary  go  before  I 
get  there.  I  want  to  speak  to  him,"  and  while  they 
stared  helplessly  at  each  other,  they  heard  her  saying 
to  Mrs.  Newton,  "Yes,  I  shall,  too!  I'm  perfectly 
rested,  now ;  and  I  shall  go  down.  I  should  think  I 
knew  how  I  felt.  I  don't  care  what  the  doctor  said ; 
and  if  you  try  to  stop  me  —  "  She  came  clattering 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          449 

down  the  stairs  in  the  boots  which  she  had  pulled 
loosely  on,  and  as  soon  as  she  showed  her  excited  face 
at  the  door,  she  began  ;  "  I've  thought  out  a  plan, 
Mr.  Hilary,  and  I  want  you  should  go  and  see  Mr. 
Putney  about  it.  You  ask  him  if  it  won't  do.  They 
can  get  father  let  out  on  bail,  when  he  comes  back, 
and  I  can  be  his  bail,  and  then,  when  there's  a  trial, 
they  can  take  me  instead  of  him.  It  won't  matter  to 
the  court  which  they  have,  as  long  as  they  have  some 
body.  Now,  you  go  and  ask  Mr.  Putney.  I  know 
he'll  say  so,  for  he's  thought  just  as  I  have  about 
father's  case,  all  along.  Will  you  go  ?  " 

"  Will  you  go  up  and  lie  down  again,  Adeline,  if 
Mr.  Hilary  will  go  ? "  Suzette  asked,  like  one  dealing 
with  a  capricious  child. 

"  What  do  you  all  want  me  to  lie  down  for  ?  "  Ade 
line  turned  upon  her.  "  I'm  perfectly  well.  And  do 
you  suppose  I  can  rest,  with  such  a  thing  on  my  mind  ? 
If  you  want  me  to  rest,  you'd  better  let  him  go  and 
find  out  what  Mr.  Putney  says.  I  think  we'd  better 
all  go  to  Canada  and  bring  father  back  with  us.  He 
isn't  fit  to  travel  alone  or  with  strangers  ;  he  needs 
some  one  that  understands  his  ways  ;  and  I'm  going 
to  him,  just  as  soon  as  Mr.  Putney  approves  of  my 
plan,  and  I  know  he  will.  But  I  don't  want  Mr.  Hil 
ary  to  lose  any  time,  now.  I  want  to  be  in  Quebec 
about  as  soon  as  father  is.  Will  you  go  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Miss  North  wick,"  said  Matt,  taking  her 
tremulous  hand.  "  I'll  go  to  Mr.  Putney ;  and  I'll 
see  my  father  again  ;  and  whatever  can  be  done  to 


450  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

save  your  father  any  further  suffering,  or  your 
self— " 

"1  don't  care  for  myself,"  she  said,  plucking  her 
hand  away.  "  I'm  young  and  strong,  and  I  can  bear 
it.  But  it's  father  I'm  so  anxious  about." 

She  began  to  cry,  and  at  a  look  from  Suzette,  Matt 
left  them.  As  he  walked  along  up  toward  the  village 
in  mechanical  compliance  with  Adeline's  crazy  wish, 
he  felt  more  and  more  the  deepening  tragedy  of  the 
case,  and  the  inadequacy  of  all  compromises  and  pallia 
tives.  There  seemed  indeed  but  one  remedy  for  the 
trouble,  and  that  was  for  Northwick  to  surrender  him 
self,  and  for  them  all  to  meet  the  consequences  together. 
He  realized  how  desperately  homesick  the  man  must 
have  been  to  take  the  risks  he  had  run  in  steal  in  £ 

O 

back  for  a  look  upon  the  places  and  the  faces  so  dear 
to  him ;  his  heart  was  heavy  with  pity  for  him.  One 
might  call  him  coward  and  egotist  all  one  would ;  at 
the  end  remained  the  fact  of  a  love  which,  if  it  could 
not  endure  heroically,  was  still  a  deep  and  strong 
affection,  doubtless  the  deepest  and  strongest  thing  in 
the  man's  weak  and  shallow  nature.  It  might  be  his 
truest  inspiration,  and  if  it  prompted  him  to  venture 
everything,  and  to  abide  by  whatever  might  befall 
him,  for  the  sake  of  being  near  those  he  loved,  and 
enjoying  the  convict's  wretched  privilege  of  looking  on 
them  now  and  then,  who  should  gainsay  him  ? 

Matt  took  Wade  in  on  his  way  to  Putney's  office,  to 
lay  this  question  before  him,  and  he  answered  it  for 
him  in  the  same  breath :  "  Certainly  no  one  less  deeply 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  451 

concerned  than  the  man's  own  flesh  and  blood  could 
forbid  him." 

"  I'm  not  sure,"  said  Wade,  "  that  even  his  own 
flesh  and  blood  would  have  a  supreme  right  there.  It 
may  be  that  love,  and  not  duty,  is  the  highest  thing  in 
life.  Oh,  I  know  how  we  reason  it  away,  and  say 
that  true  love  is  unselfish  and  can  find  its  fruition  in 
the  very  sacrifice  of  our  impulses ;  and  we  are  fond  of 
calling  our  impulses  blind,  but  God  alone  knows 
whether  they  are  blind.  The  reasoned  sacrifice  may 
satisfy  the  higher  soul,  but  what  about  the  simple  and 
primitive  natures  which  it  won't  satisfy  ?  " 

For  answer,  Matt  told  how  Northwick  had  come 
back,  at  the  risk  of  arrest,  for  an  hour  with  his  children, 
and  was  found  in  the  empty  house  that  had  been  their 
home,  and  brought  to  them :  how  he  had  besought 
them  to  let  him  stay,  but  they  had  driven  him  back  to 
his  exile.  Matt  explained  how  he  was  on  his  way  to 
the  lawyer,  at  Adeline's  frantic  demand,  to  go  all  over 
the  case  again,  and  see  if  something  could  not  be  done 
to  bring  Northwick  safely  home.  He  had  himself 
no  hope  of  finding  any  loophole  in  the  law,  through 
which  the  fugitive  could  come  and  go ;  if  he  returned, 
Matt  felt  sure  that  he  would  be  arrested  and  convicted, 
but  he  was  not  sure  that  this  might  not  be  the  best 
thing  for  all.  "You  know,"  he  said,  "I've  always 
believed  that  if  he  could  voluntarily  submit  himself  to 
the  penalty  of  his  offence,  the  penalty  would  be  the 
greatest  blessing  for  him  on  earth ;  the  only  blessing 
for  his  ruined  life." 


452  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

"  Yes,"  Wade  answered,  "  we  have  always  thought 
alike  about  that,  and  perhaps  this  torment  of  longing 
for  his  home  and  children,  may  be  the  divine  means  of 
leading  him  to  accept  the  only  mercy  possible  with 
God  for  such  a  sufferer.  If  there  were  no  one  but 
him  concerned,  we  could  not  hesitate  in  urging  him 
to  return.  But  the  innocent  who  must  endure  the 
shame  of  his  penalty  with  him  —  " 

"  They  are  ready  for  that.  Would  it  be  worse  than 
what  they  have  learned  to  endure  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  not.  But  I  was  not  thinking  of  his  chil 
dren  alone.  You,  yourself,  Matt ;  your  family  —  " 

Matt  threw  up  his  arms  impatiently,  and  made  for 
the  door.  "  There's  no  question  of  me.  And  if  they 
could  not  endure  their  portion,  —  the  mere  annoy 
ance  of  knowing  the  slight  for  them  in  the  minds  of 
vulgar  people,  —  I  should  be  ashamed  of  them." 

"  Well,  you  are  right,  Matt,"  said  his  friend.  "  God 
bless  you  and  guide  you  !  "  added  the  priest. 

The  lawyer  had  not  yet  come  to  his  office,  and  Matt 
went  to  find  him  at  his  house.  Putney  had  just  fin 
ished  his  breakfast,  and  they  met  at  his  gate,  and  he 
turned  back  indoors  with  Matt.  "Well,  you  know 
what's  happened,  I  see,"  he  said,  after  the  first  glance 
at  Matt's  face. 

"  Yes,  I  know ;  and  now  what  can  be  clone  ?  Are 
you  sure  we've  considered  every  point  ?  Isn't  there 
some  chance  —  " 

Putney  shook  his  head,  and  then  bit  off  a  piece  of 
tobacco  before  he  began  to  talk.  "  I've  been  over  the 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  453 

whole  case  in  my  mind  this  morning,  and  I'm  per 
fectly  certain  there  isn't  the  shadow  of  a  chance  of 
his  escaping  trial  if  he  gives  himself  up.  That's  what 
you  mean,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"Yes;  that's  what  I  mean,"  said  Matt,  with  a  cer 
tain  disappointment.  He  supposed  he  had  nerved  him 
self  for  the  worst,  but  he  found  he  had  been  willing  to 
accept  something  short  of  it. 

"  At  times  I'm  almost  sorry  he  got  off,"  said  Putney. 
"  If  we  could  have  kept  him,  and  surrendered  him  to 
the  law,  I  believe  we  could  have  staved  off  the  trial, 
though  we  couldn't  have  prevented  it,  and  I  believe 
we  could  have  kept  him  out  of  State's  prison  on  the 
ground  of  insanity."  Matt  started  impatiently.  "Oh, 
I  don't  mean  that  it  could  be  shown  that  he  was  of  un 
sound  mind  when  he  used  the  company's  funds  and  tam 
pered  with  their  books,  though  I  have  my  own  opinion 
about  that.  But  I  feel  sure  that  he's  of  unsound  mind 
at  present :  and  I  believe  we  could  show  it  so  clearly 
in  court  that  the  prosecution  would  find  it  impossible 
to  convict.  We  could  have  him  sent  to  the  insane 
asylum,  and  that  would  be  a  creditable  exit  from  the 
aifair  in  the  public  eye ;  it  would  have  a  retroactive 
effect  that  would  popularly  acquit  him  of  the  charges 
against  him." 

Putney  could  not  forego  a  mischievous  enjoyment 
of  Matt's  obvious  discomfort  at  this  suggestion.  His 
fierce  eyes  blazed;  but  he  added  seriously,  "Why 
shouldn't  he  have  the  advantage  of  the  truth,  if  that 
is  the  truth  about  him  ?  And  I  believe  it  is.  I  think 


454  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

it  could  be  honestly  and  satisfactorily  proved  from  his 
history,  ever  since  the  defalcation  came  out,  that  his 
reason  is  affected.  His  whole  conduct,  so  far  as  I 
know  it,  shows  it;  and  I  should  like  a  chance  to  argue 
the  case  in  court.  And  I  feel  pretty  sure  I  shall,  yet. 
I'm  just  as  certain  as  I  sit  here  that  he  will  come  back 
again.  He  can't  keep  away,  and  another  time  he  may 
not  fall  into  the  hands  of  friends.  It  will  be  a  good 
while  before  any  rumor  of  last  night's  visit  gets  out ; 
but  it  will  get  out  at  last,  and  then  the  detectives  will 
be  on  the  watch  for  him.  Perhaps  it  will  be  just  as 
well  for  us  if  he  falls  into  their  hands.  If  we  pro 
duced  him  in  court  it  might  be  more  difficult  to  work 
the  plea  of  insanity.  But  I  do  think  the  man's  insane, 
and  I  should  go  into  the  case  with  a  full  and  thorough 
persuasion  on  that  point.  Did  he  tell  them  where  to 
find  him  in  Canada  ?  " 

"  He  promised  to  let  them  know." 

"  I  doubt  if  he  does,"  said  Putney.  "  He  means  to 
try  coming  back  again.  The  secrecy  he's  kept  as  to 
his  whereabouts  —  the  perfectly  needless  and  motive 
less  secrecy,  as  far  as  his  children  are  concerned  — 
would  be  a  strong  point  in  favor  of  the  theory  of  in 
sanity.  Yes,  sir ;  I  believe  the  thing  could  be  done ; 
and  I  should  like  to  do  it.  If  the  pressure  of  our  life 
produces  insanity  of  the  homicidal  and  suicidal  type, 
there's  no  reason  why  it  shouldn't  produce  insanity  of 
the  defalcational  type.  The  conditions  tend  to  pro 
duce  it  in  a  proportion  that  is  simply  incalculable,  and 
I  think  it's  time  that  jurisprudence  recognized  the  fact 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  455 

of  such  a  mental  disease,  say,  as  defalcomania.  If 
the  fight  for  money  and  material  success  goes  on, 
with  the  opportunities  that  the  accumulation  of  vast 
sums  in  a  few  hands  afford,  what  is  to  be  the  end  ?  " 

Matt  had  no  heart  for  the  question  of  metaphysics 
or  of  economics,  whichever  it  was,  that  would  have 
attracted  him  in  another  mood.  He  went  back  to 
Suzette  and  addressed  himself  with  her  to  the  task  of 
quieting  her  sister.  Adeline  would  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  less  than  the  assurance  that  Putney  agreed 
with  her  that  her  father  would  be  acquitted  if  he 
merely  came  back  and  gave  himself  up ;  she  had 
changed  to  this  notion  in  Matt's  absence,  and  with 
the  mental  reservation  which  he  permitted  himself  he 
was  able  to  give  the  assurance  she  asked.  Then  at 
last  she  consented  to  go  to  bed,  and  wait  for  the  doc 
tor's  coming,  before  she  began  her  preparations  for 
joining  her  father  in  Canada.  She  did  not  relinquish 
that  purpose  ;  she  felt  sure  that  he  never  could  get 
home  without  her ;  and  Suzette  must  come,  too. 


IX. 

THE  fourth  morning,  when  Pinney  went  down  into 
the  hotel  office  at  Quebec,  after  a  trying  night  with 
his  sick  child  and  its  anxious  mother,  he  found  North- 
wick  sitting  there.  He  seemed  to  Pinney  a  part  of 
the  troubled  dream  he  had  waked  from. 

"  Well,  where  under  the  sun,  moon  and  stars  have 
you  been  ?  "  he  demanded,  taking  the  chance  that  this 
phantasm  might  be  flesh  and  blood. 

A  gleam  of  gratified  slyness  lit  up  the  haggardness 
of  Northwick's  face.  "  I've  been  at  home  —  at  Hat- 
boroY* 

"  Come  off !  "  said  Pinney,  astounded  out  of  the 
last  remnant  of  deference  he  had  tried  to  keep  for 
Northwick.  He  stood  looking  incredulously  at  him  a 
moment.  "  Come  in  to  breakfast,  and  tell  me  about 
it.  If  I  could  only  have  it  fora  scoop  —  " 

Northwick  ate  with  wolfish  greed,  and  as  the 
victuals  refreshed  and  fortified  him,  he  came  out  with 
his  story,  slowly,  bit  by  bit.  Pinney  listened  with 
mute  admiration.  "  Well,  sir,"  he  said,  "it's  the  big 
gest  thing  I  ever  heard  of."  But  his  face  darkened. 
"  I  suppose  you  know  it  leaves  me  out  in  the  cold.  I 
came  up  here,"  he  explained,  "  as  the  agent  of  your 
friends,  to  find  you,  and  I  did  find  you.  But  if  you've 


THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY.  457 

gone  and  given  the  whole  thing  away,  /can't  ask  any 
thing  for  my  services." 

Northwick  seemed  interested,  and  even  touched,  by 
the  hardship  he  had  worked  to  Pinney.  "  They  don't 
know  where  I  am,  now,"  he  suggested. 

"Are  you  willing  I  should  take  charge  of  the  case 
from  this  on  ?  "  asked  Pinney. 

"Yes.  Only — don't  leave  me,"  said  Northwick, 
with  tremulous  dependence. 

"  You  may  be  sure  I  won't  let  you  out  of  my  sight 
again,"  said  Pinney.  He  took  a  telegraphic  blank 
from  his  breast  pocket,  and  addressed  it  to  Matt  Hil 
ary  :  "  Our  friend  here  all  right  with  me  at  Murdock's 
Hotel."  He  counted  the  words  to  see  that  there 
were  no  more  than  ten  ;  then  he  called  a  waiter,  and 
sent  the  despatch  to  the  office.  "  Tell  'em  to  pay  it, 
and  set  it  down  against  me.  Tell  'em  to  rush  it." 

Pinney  showed  himself  only  less  devoted  to  North 
wick  than  to  his  own  wife  and  child.  His  walks  and 
talks  were  all  with  him  ;  and  as  the  baby  got  better  he 
gave  himself  more  and  more  to  the  intimacy  established 
with  him  ;  and  Northwick  seemed  to  grow  more  and 
more  reliant  on  Pinney's  filial  cares.  Mrs.  Pinney 
shared  these,  as  far  as  the  baby  would  permit ;  and 
she  made  the  silent  refugee  at  home  with  her.  She 
had  her  opinion  of  his  daughters,  who  did  not  come  to 
him,  now  that  they  knew  where  he  was  ;  but  she  con 
cealed  it  from  him,  and  helped  him  answer  Suzette's 
letters  when  he  said  he  was  not  feeling  quite  well 
enough  to  write  himself.  Adeline  did  not  write  ;  Su- 


458  THE    QUALITY    OF   MERCY. 

zette  always  said  she  was  not  quite  well,  but  was  get 
ting  better.  Then  in  one  of  Suzette's  letters  there 
came  a  tardy  confession  that  Adeline  was  confined  to 
her  bed.  She  was  tormented  with  the  thought  of 
having  driven  him  away,  and  Suzette  said  she  wished 
her  to  write  and  tell  him  to  come  back,  or  to  let  them 
come  to  him.  She  asked  him  to  express  some  wish  in 
the  matter,  so  that  she  could  show  his  answer  to  Ade 
line.  Suzette  wrote  that  Mr.  Hilary  had  come  over 
from  his  farm,  and  was  staying  at  Elbridge  Newton's, 
to  be  constantly  near  them ;  and  in  fact,  Matt  was 
with  them  when  Adeline  suddenly  died  ;  they  had  r.ot 
thought  her  dangerously  sick,  till  the  very  day  of  her 
death,  when  she  began  to  sink  rapidly. 

In  the  letter  that  brought  this  news,  Suzette  said 
that  if  they  had  dreamed  of  present  danger  they  would 
have  sent  for  their  father  to  come  back  at  any  hazard, 
and  she  lamented  that  they  had  all  been  so  blind. 
The  Newtons  would  stay  with  her,  till  she  could  join 
him  in  Quebec  ;  or,  if  he  wished  to  return,  she  and 
Matt  were  both  of  the  same  mind  about  it.  They 
were  ready  for  any  event;  but  Matt  felt  that  he  ought 
to  know  there  was  no  hope  of  his  escaping  a  trial  if 
he  returned,  and  that  he  ought  to  be  left  perfectly 
free  to  decide.  Adeline  would  be  laid  beside  her 
mother. 

The  old  man  broke  into  a  feeble  whimper  as  Mrs. 
Pinney  read  him  the  last  words.  Pinney,  walking 
softly  up  and  down  with  the  baby  in  his  arms,  whim 
pered  too. 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  459 

"  I  believe  lie  could  be  got  off,  if  he  went  back," 
lie  said  to  his  wife,  in  a  burst  of  sympathy,  when 
Northwick  had  taken  his  letter  away  to  his  own 
room. 

The  belief,  generous  in  itself,  began  to  mix  with 
self-interest  in  Pinney's  soul.  He  conscientiously 
forbore  to  urge  Northwick  to  return,  but  he  could  not 
help  portraying  the  flattering  possibilities  of  such  a 
course.  Before  they  parted  for  Pinney's  own  return, 
he  confided  his  ambition  for  the  future  to  North  wick, 
and  as  delicately  as  he  could  he  suggested  that  if 
Northwick  ever  did  make  up  his  mind  to  go  back,  he 
could  not  find  a  more  interested  and  attentive  travelling- 
companion.  Northwick  seemed  to  take  the  right  view 
of  the  matter,  the  business  view,  and  Pinney  thought 
he  had  arranged  a  difficult  point  with  great  tact ;  but 
he  modestly  concealed  his  success  from  his  wife. 
They  both  took  leave  of  the  exile  with  affection ;  and 
Mrs.  Pinney  put  her  arms  round  his  neck  and  kissed 
him ;  he  promised  her  that  he  would  take  good  care 
of  himself  in  her  absence.  Pinney  put  a  business  ad 
dress  in  his  hand  at  the  last  moment. 

Northwick  seemed  to  have  got  back  something  of 
his  moral  force  after  these  people,  who  had  so 
strangely  become  his  friends,  left  him  to  his  own  re 
sources.  Once  more  he  began  to  dream  of  employing 
the  money  he  had  with  him  for  making  more,  and  pay 
ing  back  the  Poukwasset  company's  forced  loans.  He 
positively  forbade  Suzette's  coming  to  him,  as  she 
proposed,  after  Adeline's  funeral.  He  telegraphed  to 


460  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

prevent  her  undertaking  the  journey,  and  he  wrote, 
saying  he  wished  to  be  alone  for  a  while,  and  to  decide 
for  himself  the  question  of  his  fate.  He  approved  of 
Matt's  wish  that  they  should  be  married  at  once,  and 
he  replied  to  Matt  with  a  letter  decently  observant  of 
the  peculiar  circumstances,  recognizing  the  reluctance 
his  father  and  mother  might  well  feel,  and  expressing 
the  hope  that  he  was  acting  with  their  full  and  free 
consent.  If  this  letter  could  have  been  produced  in 
court,  it  would  have  told  heavily  against  Putney's  the 
ory  of  a  defence  on  the  ground  of  insanity,  it  was  so 
clear,  and  just,  and  reasonable  ;  though  perhaps  an  ex 
pert  might  have  recognized  a  mental  obliquity  in  its 
affirmation  of  Northwick's  belief  that  Matt's  father 
would  yet  come  to  see  his  conduct  in  its  true  light,  and 
to  regard  him  as  the  victim  of  circumstances  which  he 
really  was. 

Among  the  friends  of  the  Hilarys  there  was  mis 
giving  on  this  point  of  their  approval  of  Matt's  mar 
riage.  Some  of  them  thought  that  the  parents'  hands 
had  been  forced  in  the  blessing  they  gave  it.  Old  Broni- 
iield  Corey  expressed  a  general  feeling  to  Hilary  with 
senile  frankness.  "  Hilary,  you  seem  to  have  disap 
pointed  the  expectation  of  the  admirers  of  your  iron 
firmness.  I  tell  'em  that's  what  you  keep  for  your 
enemies.  But  they  seem  to  think  that  in  Matt's 
case  you  ought  to  have  been  more  of  a  Roman 
father." 

"I'm  just  going  to  become  one,"  said  Hilary,  with 
the  good  temper  proper  to  that  moment  of  the  dinner. 


THE  QUALITY  OP  MERCY.  461 

"  Mrs.  Hilary  and  Louise  are  taking  me  over  to  Rome 
for  the  winter." 

"  You  don't  say  so,  you  don't  say !  "  said  Corey, 
"  I  wish  my  family  would  take  me.  Boston  is  gradu 
ally  making  an  old  man  of  me.  I'm  afraid  it  will  end 
by  killing  me." 


X. 

NORTHWICK,  after  the  Pinneys  went  home,  lapsed 
into  a  solitude  relieved  only  by  the  daily  letters  that 
Suzette  sent  him.  He  shrank  from  the  offers  of 
friendly  kindness  on  the  part  of  people  at  the  hotel, 
who  pitied  his  loneliness ;  and  he  began  to  live  in  a 
dream  of  his  home  again.  He  had  relinquished  that 
notion  of  attempting  a  new  business  life,  which  had 
briefly  revived  in  his  mind ;  the  same  causes  that  had 
operated  against  it  in  the  beginning,  controlled  and 
defeated  it  now.  He  felt  himself  too  old  to  bemn  life 

O 

over ;  his  energies  were  spent.  Such  as  he  had  been, 
he  had  made  himself  very  slowly  and  cautiously,  in 
familiar  conditions ;  he  had  never  been  a  man  of  busi 
ness  dash,  and  he  could  not  pick  himself  up  and 
launch  himself  in  a  new  career,  as  a  man  of  different 
make  might  have  done,  even  at  his  age.  Perhaps 
there  had  been  some  lesion  of  the  will  in  that  fever  of 
his  at  Haha  Bay,  which  disabled  him  from  forming 
any  distinct  purpose,  or  from  trying  to  carry  out  any 
such  purpose  as  he  did  form.  Perhaps  he  was,  in  his 
helplessness,  merely  of  that  refugee-type  which  exile 
moulds  men  to :  a  thing  of  memories  and  hopes,  with 
out  definite  aims  or  plans. 

As  the  days  passed,  he  dwelt  in  an  outward  inert- 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY.  463 

ness,  while  his  dreams  and  longings  incessantly  re 
habilitated  the  home  whose  desolation  he  had  seen 
with  his  own  eyes.  It  would  be  better  to  go  back  and 
suffer  the  sentence  of  the  law,  and  then  go  to  live 
again  in  the  place  which,  in  spite  of  his  senses,  he 
could  only  imagine  clothed  in  the  comfort  and  state 
that  had  been  stripped  from  it.  Elbridge's  talk,  on 
the  way  to  "West  Hatboio',  about  the  sale,  and  what 
had  become  of  the  horses  and  cattle,  and  the  plants, 
went  for  no  more  than  the  evidence  of  his  own  eyes 
that  they  were  all  gone.  He  did  not  realize,  except 
in  the  shocks  that  the  fact  imparted  at  times,  that 
death  as  well  as  disaster  had  invaded  his  home.  Ad 
eline  was,  for  the  most  part,  still  alive :  iii  his  fond 
reveries  she  was  present,  and  part  of  that  home  as  she 
had  always  been. 

He  began  to  flatter  himself  that  if  he  went  back  he 
could  contrive  that  compromise  with  the  court  which 
his  friends  had  failed  to  bring  about ;  he  persuaded 
himself  that  if  it  came  to  a  trial  he  could  offer  evi 
dence  that  would  result  in  his  acquittal.  But  if  he 
must  undergo  some  punishment  for  the  offence  of 
being  caught  in  transactions  which  were  all  the  time 
carried  on  with  impunity,  he  told  himself  that  interest 
could  be  used  to  make  his  punishment  light.  In  these 
hopeful  moods  it  was  a  necessity  of  his  drama  that  his 
transgression  of  the  l^w  should  seem  venial  to  him. 
It  was  only  when  he  feared  the  worst  that  he  felt 
guilty  of  wrong. 

It  could  not  be  said  that  these  moments  of  a  con- 


464          THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

sciousness  of  guilt  were  so  frequent  as  ever  to  become 
confluent,  and  to  form  a  mood.  They  came  and  went ; 
perhaps  toward  the  last  they  were  more  frequent. 
What  seems  certain  is  that  in  the  end  there  be^an  to 

O 

mix  with  his  longing  for  home  a  desire,  feeble  and 
formless  enough,  for  expiation.  There  began  to  be 
suggested  to  him  from  somewhere,  somehow,  some 
thing  like  the  thought  that  if  he  had  really  done 
wrong,  there  might  be  rest  and  help  in  accepting  the 
legal  penalty,  disproportionate  and  excessive  as  it 
might  be.  He  tried  to  make  this  notion  appreciable 
to  Pinney  when  they  first  met  after  he  summoned 
Pinncy  to  Quebec ;  he  offered  it  as  an  explanation  of 
his  action. 

In  making  up  his  mind  to  return  at  all  hazards  and 
to  take  all  the  chances,  he  remembered  what  Pinney 
had  said  to  him  about  his  willingness  to  bear  him 
company.  It  was  not  wholly  a  generous  impulse  that 
prompted  him  to  send  for  Pinney,  or  the  self-sacri 
ficing  desire  to  make  Pinney's  fortune  in  his  new 
quality  of  detective ;  he  simply  dreaded  the  long  jour 
ney  alone ;  he  wanted  the  comfort  of  Pinney's  soci 
ety.  He  liked  Pinney,  and  he  longed  for  the  vulgar 
cheerfulness  of  his  buoyant  spirit.  He  felt  that  he 
could  rest  upon  it  in  the  fate  he  was  bringing  himself 
to  face ;  he  instinctively  desired  the  kindly,  lying 
sympathy  of  a  soul  that  had  so  much  affinity  with  his 
own.  He  telegraphed  Pinney  to  come  for  him,  and 
he  was  impatient  till  he  came. 

Pinney  started  the  instant  he  received  Northwick's 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          465 

telegram,  and  met  him  with  an  enthusiasm  of  congrat 
ulation.  "  Well,  Mr.  Northwick,  this  is  a  great  thing. 
It's  the  right  thing,  and  it's  the  wise  thing.  It's 
going  to  have  a  tremendous  effect.  I  suppose,"  he 
added,  a  little  tremulously,  "that  you've  thought  it 
all  thoroughly  over  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  I'm  prepared  for  the  worst,"  said  North- 
wick. 

"  Oh,  there  won't  be  any  worst,"  Pinney  returned 
gayly.  "There'll  be  legal  means  of  delaying  the 
trial ;  your  lawyer  can  manage  that ;  or  if  he  can't, 
and  you  have  to  face  the  music  at  once,  we  can  have 
you  brought  into  court  without  the  least  publicity,  and 
the  judge  will  go  through  with  the  forms,  and  it'll  be 
all  over  before  anybody  knows  anything  about  it. 
I'll  see  that  there's  no  interviewing,  and  that  there 
are  no  reporters  present.  There'll  probably  be  a 
brief  announcement  among  the  cases  in  court ;  but 
there  won't  be  anything  painful.  You  needn't  be 
afraid.  But  what  I'm  anxious  about  now  is,  not  to 
bring  any  influence  to  bear  on  you.  I  promised  my 
wife  I  wouldn't  urge  you,  and  I  won't;  I  know  I'm  a 
little  optimistic,  and  if  you  don't  see  this  thing  exactly 
couleur  de  rose,  don't  you  do  it  from  anything  /  say." 
Pinney  apparently  put  great  stress  upon  himself  to 
get  this  out. 

"I've  looked  it  in  the  face,"  said  Northwick. 
"  And  your  friends  know  you're  coming  back  ?  " 
"They  expect  me   at  any  time.     You    can   notify 
them." 


466  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

Pinney  drew  a  long,  anxious  breath.  "  Well,"  he 
said,  with  a  sort  of  desperation,  "  then  I  don't  see  why 
we  don't  start  at  once." 

"Have  you  got  your  papers  all  right?"  Northwick 
asked. 

"Yes,"  said  Pinney,  with  a  blush.  "But  you 
know,"  he  added,  respectfully,  "  I  can't  touch  you  till 
we  get  over  the  line,  Mr.  Northwick." 

"  I  understand  that.     Let  me  see  your  warrant." 

Pinney  reluctantly  produced  the  paper,  and  North 
wick  read  it  carefully  over.  He  folded  it  up  with  a 
deep  sigh,  and  took  a  long  stiff  envelope  from  his 
breast-pocket,  and  handed  it  to  Pinney,  with  the 
warrant.  "  Here  is  the  money  I  brought  with 
me." 

"  Mr.  Northwick  !  It  isn't  necessary  yet !  Indeed 
it  isn't.  I've  every  confidence  in  your  honor  as  a 
gentleman."  Pinney's  eyes  glowed  with  joy,  arid  his 
fingers  closed  upon  the  envelope  convulsively.  "  But 
if  you  mean  business  —  " 

"  I  mean  business,"  said  Northwick.     "  Count  it." 

Pinney  took  the  notes  out  and  ran  them  over. 
"  Forty-one  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty." 

"  That  is  right,"  said  Northwick.  "  Now,  another 
matter.  Have  you  got  hand-cuffs  ?  " 

"Why,  Mr.  Northwick!  What  are  you  giving 
me?"  demanded  Pinney.  "I'd  as  soon  put  them  on 
my  own  father." 

" I  want  you  to  put  them  on  me"  said  Northwick. 
"  I  intend  to  go  back  as  your  prisoner.  If  I  have 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.          467 

anything  to  expiate"  —  and  he  seemed  to  indulge  a 
question  of  the  fact  for  the  last  time  —  "I  want  the 
atonement  to  begin  as  soon  as  possible.  If  you 
haven't  brought  those  things  with  you,  you'd  better 
go  out  to  the  police  station  and  get  them,  while  I 
attend  to  the  tickets." 

"  Oh,  I  needn't  go,"  said  Pinney,  and  his  face 
burned. 

He  was  full  of  nervous  trepidation  at  the  start,  and 
throughout  the  journey  he  was  anxious  and  perturbed, 
while  on  Northwick,  after  the  first  excitement,  a  deep 
quiet,  a  stupor,  or  a  spiritual  peace,  seemed  to  have 
fallen. 

"  By  George !  "  said  Pinney,  when  they  started, 
"  anybody  to  see  us  would  think  you  were  taking  me 
back."  He  was  tenderly  watchful  of  Northwick's 
comfort ;  he  left  him  free  to  come  and  go  at  the 
stations  ;  from  the  restaurants  he  bought  him  things 
to  tempt  his  appetite  ;  but  Northwick  said  he  did  not 
care  to  eat. 

They  had  a  long  night  in  a  day-car,  for  they  found 
there  was  no  sleeper  on  their  train.  In  the  morning, 
when  the  day  broke,  Northwick  asked  Pinney  what 
the  next  station  was. 

Pinney  said  he  did  not  know.  He  looked  at  North- 
wick  as  if  the  possession  of  him  gave  him  very  little 
pleasure,  and  asked  him  how  he  had  slept. 

"  I  haven't  slept,"  said  Northwick.  "  I  suppose  I'm 
rather  excited.  My  nerves  seem  disordered." 

"  Well,  of  course,"  said  Pinney,  soothingly. 


468  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

They  were  silent  a  moment,  and  then  Northwick 
asked,  "  What  did  you  say  the  next  station  was  ?  " 

"I'll  ask  the  brakeman."  They  could  see  the 
brakeman  on  the  platform.  Pinney  went  out  to  him, 
and  returned.  "It's  Wellwater,  he  says.  We  get 
breakfast  there." 

"  Then  we're  over  the  line,  now,"  said  Northwick. 

"Why,  yes,"  Pinney  admitted,  reluctantly.  He 
added,  in  a  livelier  note,  "You  get  a  mighty  good 
breakfast  at  Wellwater,  and  I'm  ready  to  meet  it  half 
way."  He  turned,  and  looked  hard  at  Northwick. 
"  If  I  should  happen  to  get  left  there,  what  would  you 
do?  Would  you  keep  on,  anyway?  Is  your  mind 
still  made  up  on  that  point  ?  I  ask,  because  all  kinds 
of  accidents  happen,  and  — "  Pinney  stopped,  and 
regarded  his  captive  fixedly.  "  Or  if  you  don't  feel 
quite  able  to  travel  —  " 

"  Let  me  see  your  warrant  again,"  said  Northwick. 

Pinney  relaxed  his  gaze  with  a  shrug,  and  produced 
the  paper.  Northwick  read  it  all  once  more.  "  I'm 
your  prisoner,"  he  said,  returning  the  paper.  "You 
can  put  the  handcuffs  on  me  now." 

"  No,  no,  Mr.  Northwick !  "  Pinney  pleaded.  "  I 
don't  want  to  do  that.  I'm  not  afraid  of  your  trying 
to  get  away.  I  assure  you  it  isn't  necessary  between 
gentlemen." 

Northwick  held  out  his  wrists.  "  Put  them  on, 
please." 

"  Oh,  well,  if  I  must!  "  protested  Pinney.  "  But  I 
swear  I  won't  lock  'em."  He  glanced  round  to  find 


THE    QUALITY   OF   MERCY.  469 

whether  any  of  the  other  passengers  were  noticing. 
"You  can  slip  'em  off  whenever  you  get  tired  of  'em." 
He  pushed  Northwick's  sleeves  down  over  them  with 
shame-faced  anxiety.  "Don't  let  people  see  the 
damned  things,  for  God's  sake  ! ' 

"  That's  good !  "  murmured  North  wick,  as  if  the 
feel  of  the  iron  pleased  him. 

The  incident  turned  Pinney  rather  sick.  He  went 
out  on  the  platform  of  the  car  for  a  little  breath  of  air, 
and  some  restorative  conversation  with  the  brakeman. 
When  he  came  back,  Northwick  was  sitting  where  he 
left  him.  His  head  had  fallen  on  his  breast.  "  Poor 
old  fellow,  he's  asleep,"  Pinney  thought.  He  put  his 
hand  gently  on  Northwick's  shoulder.  "  I'll  have  to 
wake  you  here,"  he  said.  "  We'll  be  in,  now,  in  a 
minute." 

Northwick  tumbled  forward  at  his  touch,  and  Pin 
ney  caught  him  round  the  neck,  and  lifted  his  face. 

"  Oh,  my  God !     He's  dead !  " 

The  loosened  handcuffs  fell  on  the  floor. 


XL 

AFTER  they  were  married,  Suzette  and  Matt  went 
to  live  on  his  farm ;  and  it  was  then  that  she  accom 
plished  a  purpose  she  had  never  really  given  up.  She 
surrendered  the  whole  place  at  Hatboro'  to  the  com 
pany  her  father  had  defrauded.  She  had  no  sentiment 
about  the  place,  such  as  had  made  the  act  impossible 
to  Adeline,  and  must  have  prevented  the  sacrifice  on 
Suzette's  part  as  long  as  her  sister  lived.  But  suffer 
ing  from  that  and  from  all  other  earthly  troubles  was 
past  for  Adeline  ;  she  was  dead ;  and  Suzette  felt  it 
no  wrong  to  her  memory  to  put  out  of  her  own  hands 
the  property  which  something  higher  than  the  logic  of 
the  case  forbade  her  to  keep.  As  far  as  her  father 
was  concerned,  she  took  his  last  act  as  a  sign  that  he 
wished  to  make  atonement  for  the  wrong  he  had  com 
mitted  ;  and  she  felt  that  the  surrender  of  this  prop 
erty  to  his  creditors  was  in  the  line  of  his  endeavor. 
She  had  strengthened  herself  to  bear  his  conviction 
and  punishment,  if  he  came  back ;  and  since  he  was 
dead,  this  surrender  of  possessions  tainted  for  her  with 
the  dishonesty  in  which  the  unhappy  man  had  lived 
was  nothing  like  loss  ;  it  was  rather  a  joyful  relief. 

Yet  it  was  a  real  sacrifice,  and  she  was  destined  to 
feel  it  in  the  narrowed  conditions  of  her  life.  But  she 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  471 

had  become  used  to  narrow  conditions  ;  she  had  learned 
how  little  people  could  live  with  when  they  had  appar 
ently  nothing  to  live  for ;  and  now  that  in  Matt  she 
had  everything  to  live  for,  the  surrender  of  all  she  had 
in  the  world  left  her  incalculably  rich. 

Matt  rejoiced  with  her  in  her  decision,  though  he 
had  carefully  kept  himself  from  influencing  it.  He 
was  poor,  too,  except  for  the  comfortable  certainty 
that  his  father  could  not  let  him  want ;  but  so  far  as 
he  had  been  able,  he  had  renounced  his  expectations 
from  his  father's  estate  in  order  that  he  might  seem 
to  be  paying  Northwick's  indebtedness  to  the  com 
pany.  Doubtless  it  was  only  an  appearance ;  in  the 
end  the  money  his  father  left  would  come  equally  to 
himself  and  Louise ;  but  in  the  meantime  the  resti 
tution  for  Northwick  did  cramp  Eben  Hilary  more  for 
the  moment  than  he  let  his  son  know.  So  he  thought 
it  well  to  allow  Matt  to  go  seriously  to  work  on  ac 
count  of  it,  and  to  test  his  economic  theories  in  the 
attempt  to  make  his  farm  yield  him  a  living.  It  must 
be  said  that  the  prospect  dismayed  neither  Matt  nor 
Suzette ;  there  was  that  in  her  life  which  enabled  her 
to  dispense  with  the  world  and  its  pleasures  and 
favors ;  and  he  had  long  ceased  to  desire  them. 

The  Ponkwasset  directors  had  no  hesitation  in  ac 
cepting  the  assignment  of  property  made  them  by 
Northwick's  daughter.  As  a  corporate  body  they  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  finer  question  of  right  involved. 
They  looked  at  the  plain  fact  that  they  had  been  heav 
ily  defrauded  by  the  former  owner  of  the  property, 


472  THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY. 

who  had  inferably  put  it  out  of  his  hands  in  view  of 
some  such  contingency  as  he  had  finally  reached ;  and 
as  it  had  remained  in  the  possession  of  his  family  ever 
since,  they  took  no  account  of  the  length  of  time  that 
had  elapsed  since  he  was  actually  the  owner.  They 
recognized  the  propriety  of  his  daughter's  action  in 
surrendering  it,  and  no  member  of  the  Board  was 
quixotic  enough  to  suggest  that  the  company  had  no 
more  claim  upon  the  property  she  conveyed  to  them 
tluin  upon  any  other  piece  of  real  estate  in  the  com 
monwealth. 

"They  considered,"  said  Putney,  who  had  com 
pleted  the  affair  on  the  part  of  Suzette,  and  was  after 
wards  talking  it  over  with  his  crony,  Dr.  Morrell,  in 
something  of  the  bitterness  of  defeat,  "  that  their  first 
duty  was  to  care  for  the  interests  of  their  stockhold 
ers,  who  seemed  to  turn  out  all  widows  and  orphans, 
as  nearly  as  I  could  understand.  It  appears  as  if 
nobody  but  innocents  of  that  kind  live  on  the  Ponk- 
wasset  dividends,  and  it  would  have  been  inhuman  not 
to  look  after  their  interests.  Well,"  he  went  on, 
breaking  from  this  grievance,  "  there's  this  satisfactory 
thing  about  it ;  somebody  has  done  something  at  last 
that  he  intended  to  do ;  and,  of  course,  the  he  in  ques 
tion  is  a  she.  '  She  that  was '  Miss  Suzette  is  the  only 
person  connected  with  the  whole  affair,  that's  had  her 
way.  Everybody  else's  way  has  come  to  nothing,  begin 
ning  with  my  own.  /can  look  back  to  the  time  when 
I  meant  to  have  the  late  J.  Milton  North  wick's  blood ; 
I  was  lying  low  for  years,  waiting  for  him  to  do  just 


THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.  473 

what  he  did  do  at  last,  and  I  expected  somehow,  by  the 
blessing  of  God,  to  help  run  him  down,  or  bring  him 
to  justice,  as  we  say  The  first  thing  I  knew,  I  turned 
up  his  daughter's  counsel,  and  was  devoting  myself  to 
the  interests  of  a  pair  of  grass-orphans  with  the  high 
and  holy  zeal  of  a  Board  of  Directors.  All  I  wanted 
was  to  have  J.  Milton  brought  to  trial,  not  so  I  could 
help  send  him  to  State's  prison  with  a  band  of  music, 
but  so  I  could  get  him  off  on  the  plea  of  insanity. 
But  I  wasn't  allowed  to  have  my  way,  even  in  a  little 
thing  like  that ;  and  of  all  the  things  that  were  planned 
for  and  against,  and  round  about  Northwick,  just  one 
has  been  accomplished.  The  directors  failed  to  be  in 
at  the  death ;  and  old  Hilary  has  had  to  resign  from 
the  Board,  and  pay  the  defaulter's  debts.  Pinney,  I 
understand,  considers  himself  a  ruined  man ;  he's  left 
off  detecting  for  a  living,  and  gone  back  to  interview 
ing.  Poor  old  Adeline  lived  in  the  pious  hope  of 
making  Northwick's  old  age  comfortable  in  their  beau 
tiful  home  on  the  money  he  had  stolen  ;  and  now  that 
she's  dead  it  goes  to  his  creditors.  Why,  even  Billy 
Gerrish,  a  high-minded,  public-spirited  man  like  "Wil 
liam  B.  Gerrish,  —  couldn't  have  his  way  about  North- 
wick.  No,  sir  ;  Northwick  himself  couldn't !  Look 
how  he  fooled  away  his  time  there  in  Canada,  after  he 
got  off  with  money  enough  to  start  him  on  the  high 
road  to  fortune  again.  He  couldn't  budge  of  his  own 
motion  ;  and  the  only  thing  he  really  tried  to  do  he 
failed  in  disgracefully.  Adeline  wouldn't  let  him  stay 
when  he  come  back  to  buy  himself  off  ;  and  that  killed 


474  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY. 

her.  Then,  when  he  started  home  again,  to  take  his 
punishment,  the  first  thing  he  did  was  to  drop  dead. 
Justice  herself  couldn't  have  her  way  with  Northwick. 
But  I'm  not  sorry  lie  slipped  through  her  fingers. 
There  wasn't  the  stuff  for  an  example  in  Nortliwick ; 
1  don't  know  that  he's  much  of  a  warning.  He  just 
seems  to  be  a  kind  of  —  incident;  and  a  pretty  com 
mon  kind.  He  was  a  mere  creature  of  circumstances 
—  like  the  rest  of  us!  His  environment  made  him 
rich,  and  his  environment  made  him  a  rogue.  Some 
times  I  think  there  was  nothing  to  Northwick,  except 
what  happened  to  him.  He's  a  puzzle.  But  what  do 
you  say,  Doc.,  to  a  world  where  we  fellows  keep  fum 
ing  and  fizzing  away,  with  our  little  aims  and  pur 
poses,  and  the  great  ball  of  life  seems  to  roll  calmly 
along,  and  get  where  it's  going  without  the  slightest 
reference  to  what  we  do  or  don't  do  ?  I  suppose  it's 
wicked  to  be  a  fatalist,  but  I'll  go  a  few  rcons  of  eter 
nal  punishment  more,  and  keep  my  private  opinion 
that  it's  all  Fate." 

"  Why  not  call  it  Law  ?  "  the  doctor  suggested. 

"  Well,  I  don't  like  to  be  too  bold.  But  taking  it 
by  and  large,  and  seeing  that  most  things  seem  to  turn 
out  pretty  well  in  the  end,  I'll  split  the  difference  with 
you  and  call  it  Mercy." 


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iant.  .  .  .  We  are  carried  through  a  surprising  variety  of  scenes ;  we 
witness  a  sea-fight,  a  chariot-race,  the  internal  economy  of  a  Roman 
galley,  domestic  interiors  at  Autioch,  at  Jerusalem,  and  among  the 
tribes  of  the  desert;  palaces,  prisons,  the  haunts  of  dissipated  Roman 
youth,  the  houses  of  pious  families  of  Israel.  There  is  plenty  of  ex 
citing  incident;  everything  is  animated,  vivid,  and  glowing. — N.  Y. 
Tribune. 

It  is  full  of  poetic  beauty,  as  though  born  of  an  Eastern  sage,  and 
there  is  sufficient  of  Oriental  customs,  geography,  nomenclature,  etc., 
to  greatly  strengthen  the  semblance. — Boston  Commonwealth. 

"Ben-IIur"is  interesting,  and  its  characterization  is  fine  and  strong. 
Meanwhile  it  evinces  careful  study  of  the  period  in  which  the  scene  is 
laid,  and  will  help  those  who  read  it  with  reasonable  attention  to  real 
ize  the  nature  and  conditions  of  Hebrew  life  in  Jerusalem  and  Ro 
man  life  at  Antioch  at  the  time  of  our  Saviour's  advent. — Examiner, 
N.Y. 

The  book  is  one  of  unquestionable  power,  and  will  be  read  with  un 
wonted  interest  by  many  readers  who  are  weary  of  the  conventional 
novel  and  romance. — Boston  Journal. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

$3f  The  above  icork  sent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the 
United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


OCT 


201970 


Y- 
MA* 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


COOD37375T 


